


Greatness Inspires Envy

by CarpensDiem



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Hogwarts, Wizarding World (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2020-09-11 14:29:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 56
Words: 162,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20316331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarpensDiem/pseuds/CarpensDiem
Summary: Natalie Borealis met Tom Riddle on the Hogwarts Express when they were mere first years. It wasn't until several years later, however, were they to realize that being great had its roots - and its consequences.





	1. Year I: The Hogwarts Express

The Hogwarts Express was bloody beautiful. This thought had seized hold of the eleven-year old’s mind and refused to be put aside. If the train was that marvelous, she could only imagine what the school itself looked like. She hoped it lived up to her mother’s nostalgic stories.

“Natalie!” her mother’s warm voice pulled her out of vivid daydreams and back to the loud, crowded platform. Natalie Borealis looked into her mother’s moist gray eyes, almost mirrors of her own. “Remember what I told you?”

“Don’t let anyone tell you who you are,” the girl repeated, a proud smile growing on her face in spite of the history behind the line. Natalie knew her mother had been cast aside and shunned by her own parents. The Malfoy family was deeply wounded when their sweet, vivacious daughter, Theia, fell in love with a muggle man and eloped off to the emerald fields of Ireland. 

“That’s right,” Theia matched Natalie’s smile. Her daughter had inherited the platinum blonde hair, gray eyes, and aristocratic features of the Malfoy family, along with Theia’s own innate knack for magic. Her husband’s passion for what he put his mind to had clearly been passed down to their daughter as well; Natalie’s gray eyes possessed latent embers waiting to be ignited. Theia knew the girl did not need to be cautioned about the potential difficulties of Hogwarts. “Be nice to your cousin, no matter what he says.”

“Abraxas?” Natalie curiously asked, she had never met her cousin due to the divide in the family after Theia’s marriage.

“Yes,” her mother said, “he’s a few years older than you.”

“I’ll be nice,” the girl grinned. She gave her mother one last hug before dashing off to board the scarlet train. At last. 

The aisle of the Hogwarts Express teemed with students, all dragging their heavy luggage while they shouted greetings to their friends after a long summer away. 

Natalie carefully pushed her way through the melee, searching for an empty compartment. A crease of anxiety crossed her forehead when it seemed all the compartments had been taken. Sighing her distress and feeling the train begin to move out of the station, she tugged her trunk and the cage holding her new kitten, Selene, towards the nearest compartment with the least amount of people.

“Do you mind if I sit here?” she pulled open the door to the compartment which fit her criteria and asked the lone boy gazing out the window with a yearning expression.

He turned and looked at her blankly for a moment before nodding his head.

“Thank you,” she murmured, entering and settling her belongings before taking the seat across from the boy. 

Silence reigned in the compartment as the train chugged out of the station and began steaming off towards its destination. Both occupants remained quiet, neither wishing to begin a conversation, although each fully aware of the rules of societal norms which dictated they should speak to the other. 

“First year?” Natalie finally gave in to the social pressure she had always found frustrating. She asked a question she already knew the answer to; it was obvious the boy was also a first year. The uncertainty and excitement brewing in his dark eyes was a dead giveaway, and his equally dark hair had been meticulously groomed to ensure he made a good impression. 

“Yes,” it was only one word but it seemed it had been carefully thought out and diligently crafted. “You?”

“Yes,” Natalie said, realizing he already knew this too. She stuck out her hand. “I’m Natalie Borealis. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Tom Riddle,” he replied, taking her hand in his. Her handshake took him aback; it was much stronger than the petite girl looked capable of. He found himself admiring and envying it. 

The two grew quiet after the introductions, and it was clear to both of them that the other was perfectly content with taciturn observation. The lack of conversation between the pair was somewhat awkward, but neither was willing to reinitiate conversation, because they knew they would be unable to sustain it for very long. 

Their agreed upon silence was broken by the compartment door sliding open. Two young students, one boy and one girl — possibly their same age and year — stumbled in, both red in the face and panting for breath. 

“Anyone sitting here?” the boy gasped out, looking between the two already sitting. “We just caught the train, and there are no more empty compartments.”

“No,” Natalie shook her head, moving over towards the window to make room for the pair. 

“Thanks!” the boy gave her a grin and the new duo stepped in to join them.

“I’m Rebecca Macmillan,” the girl introduced herself after they had taken a seat. “First year.” She had curly brown hair, sparkling blue eyes, and was rather tall for her age. 

“And I’m Logan Wernfeld,” the boy said, “also a first year.” He had dark, messy hair and impish brown eyes that made him look very much like an elf.

“Natalie Borealis,” Natalie gave the pair a forced smile. She could smell trouble on them. 

“Tom Riddle,” Tom said, annoyed they had chosen his compartment to sit in. 

“We’re also first years,” Natalie felt obligated to toss this fact out. 

“Oh, good!” Rebecca exclaimed, jumping up and down in her seat and making Natalie and Tom wince at her overbearing exuberance. “What house do you think you’ll be in? What’s your blood status? How hard do you think Potions class is going to be?”

These were all questions Natalie did not wish to hear, nor answer. Her mother had been in Slytherin, thus she knew the most about that house. But she was not sure which house she would end up in; worried her blood status might compromise being in the same house as Theia Malfoy. This was also why she did not wish to reveal her blood status; she knew her extended family was ashamed of her mother’s marriage. It was a touchy subject, and a quick glance told her it was the same for Tom Riddle. 

“Keep asking what people’s blood status is and you’ll end up in Slytherin,” Logan joked, elbowing Rebecca in the ribs. She screamed and went to slap him over the head. Their antics saved the other two from having to answer her interrogatives, much to their relief. 

The rest of the train ride continued in the same fashion. Rebecca Macmillan bouncing around like a wild animal, Logan Wernfeld antagonizing her, (it was clear the two were already great friends), while Natalie Borealis and Tom Riddle watched them coolly, hiding their irritation and occasionally exchanging glances, as though to ensure themselves they were not alone in thinking the other two were downright obnoxious.

Once they disembarked, Natalie found herself sailing across a glassy lake in a self-propelled boat with Tom Riddle, Rebecca Macmillan, Logan Wernfeld, and two other girls who introduced themselves as Shelby Cox and Kendall Stevenson. 

As the view of the castle came into sight, even Macmillan and Wernfeld were awed into silence, something which was greatly appreciated by those in the boat with them. 

Why did she even think the train was beautiful? Natalie found herself marveling this as she gawked at the tall towers of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It was a glorious sight, and immediately seared itself into her memory for the rest of her life. 

Scrambling out of the boats and walking up to the castle was like a dream. As the doors to the Great Hall opened, Natalie’s breath caught in her throat as she stared, spellbound, up at the enchantment of the night sky. 

She was hardly aware of the group of first years around her, being shuffled down the hall and to the front of the table, where a ragged old hat sat on a wooden stool. 

Then it started singing. Natalie snapped her attention away from the ceiling and to the hat as it loudly and rhythmically proclaimed the glories of Hogwarts. 

When it at last grew quiet, “Abbott, Sarah” was called forth from the crowd and shyly went up to take a seat on the stool and have the hat placed upon her head. Natalie quickly noted that the sorting was to be in alphabetical order and felt her anxiety ease, for she would be sorted sooner than most of the others. 

“Borealis, Natalie!” the tall wizard with an auburn beard announced and she felt herself stumbling forwards. 

Next thing she knew, she was sitting on the stool with her feet swaying above the floor, the hat on her head. Her gray eyes scanned the crowd staring up at her; she caught a flash of blond hair in a group of black robes with green trim and wondered if this was her cousin. But the thought was put out of her mind when the hat began speaking in her ear.

_ “Ah, Theia Malfoy runs off with a muggle and this is the result? How curious. . . .” _

Natalie didn’t know if this was a compliment or an insult, but frankly, she found the opinion of a hat about her lineage was of little concern to her. 

_ “You’ll care about my opinion of which house to put you in,” _ it chuckled and she froze, her hands grasping the seat of the chair in astonishment as the old hat read her thoughts. 

“_Your potential lies waiting for you to decide which direction to take it, Natalie,” _the hat laughed in her ear. “_If you can control it. . ._ _you’ll be best in _SLYTHERIN!” The sorting hat shouted this last word for the whole hall to hear. A jolt of shock and relief flew through her before the hat was plucked from her head and she made her way towards the applauding green table. 

Natalie wedged herself into one of the open spaces reserved for new first years, ignoring the piercing stare coming from her cousin, Abraxas. 

She was soon joined by a Quinn Bulstrode and a Melania Crouch, while Shelby Cox was sorted into Hufflepuff. Eric Dawson, a slender blond-haired boy was also welcomed into Slytherin, so was Pamela Selwyn, Tom Riddle, and several others with pureblood last names. The two annoying students who had made Natalie’s train ride a headache were sorted into Gryffindor, and Kendall Stevenson joined Shelby Cox at the Hufflepuff table, to her delight.

As the sorting wrapped up and the tables became laden with heavenly food, shy conversations began between several of the first years at the Slytherin table. Quinn Bulstrode and Pamela Selwyn already seemed to be friends, while Eric Dawson struck up a conversation with a boy named Adolphus Lestrange, and Natalie realized that these two were, also, already friends. 

She, however, was more interested in the food before her than in the people around her at the moment. Indulging herself in the delicious meal, she listened to the conversations occurring, most of which seemed to be centered around classes tomorrow and what the professors would be like. 

“Move, first years,” a voice had Natalie averting her eyes up and to her right. A figure with bright blond hair and blue-gray eyes approached her. Abraxas Malfoy settled himself into the seat beside Natalie Borealis and spent a long moment staring at her as if attempting to read her mind. 

“Hello,  _ cousin _ ,” he finally said, and the eyes of the other first years around them flew over to watch. 

“Abraxas,” Natalie nodded in his direction. “Nice to finally meet you.”

“Well, don’t sound too happy about it,” sarcasm rolled off his tongue easily. “I, for one, am astonished that my blood-traitor cousin managed to get herself sorted into Slytherin. I suppose you must have hoodwinked the hat, somehow.”

Whispers broke out around them; Bulstrode and Selwyn seemed the most excited to discover this piece of information. A member of the Malfoy family being a blood-traitor? That was practically unheard of.

Natalie let out a small cough, well-aware that by now, half the Slytherin table listened in to their conversation. “Just like how my father allegedly hoodwinked my mother into marrying him?” She effortlessly returned his sarcasm. The intonation of her voice made the statement so ludicrous-sounding, all watching burst into laughter. Abraxas realized it was at his expense and his pale skin flushed a molten crimson as his taunting backfired on himself. 

“She beat you with that one, Malfoy!” another Slytherin boy sniggered, clapping Abraxas on the back good-naturedly.

“Oi, what’d you say your name was?” an older Slytherin called from down the table. 

Natalie’s eyes widened at the amount of attention she was suddenly being given by Slytherin house. It had just been a simple remark. Her gray eyes appeared colorless against the rosy blush that rose to her face. She had been at Hogwarts for barely an hour and already people wanted to know her name. She wasn’t sure if she should be proud, or terrified.

“Natalie Borealis,” she replied in a low voice, and someone had to repeat it for the asker to hear it.

“Play Quidditch at all? Do any of you young ones play Quidditch?” the same boy then questioned, eliciting groans up and down the table.

“Stop  _ recruiting _ , Crockett! They’re babies!” someone complained, and the older boy named Crockett looked angry at this. 

“I’m captain of the team this year and if you’ve got a problem with me looking to replace last year’s graduating class, you can bring it up with Professor Slughorn!” he declared with a scowl. “And besides, first years are allowed to try out if they’ve got permission from their parents.”

“When I’m headmaster, I’ll ban firsties from playing,” a Slytherin boy with a silver “P” badge shining proudly on his robes proclaimed. “Remember what happened to Tyrell Hooper?”

“You’re never going to be headmaster, you buffoon,” Crockett barked a laugh, which was echoed by several others. “And Hooper was a blithering idiot.”

By now, Natalie’s eyes bounced back and forth around the table, trying to keep track of who was speaking and who seemed to be friends with whom. Her fellow first years did the same. 

Despite the insults and laughter at the expense of others, Slytherin house seemed like a tight-knit group of students who, while taking shots at each other when together, would have each other’s backs no matter what. She was eager to immerse herself into this brotherhood. 

The attention of the table wavered as dessert vanished and members began departing the Great Hall. Natalie Borealis rose to follow them, but found herself stopped by a hand on her shoulder. She glanced back to spy her like-featured cousin glaring at her, his face a mask. 

“What?” she asked him, and though it was not meant to be rude, he took it as such.

“Real polite to your family, aren’t you,” he sneered, then gestured for her to follow him. She grudgingly did so, walking beside him within the crowd of Slytherins into the depths of the castle. “I suppose you get that from your father. . . it’s to be expected.”

“Or it’s from the other side, because you’re certainly no more polite than I am,” she argued, wondering where her cheek was coming from. 

“Look, I’ve got it bad enough having a blood-traitor as a cousin here at school with me,” Abraxas’ tone dropped as they approached the dungeons. “I don’t need you sassing me in front of everyone at dinner, okay?”

“Uh, okay,” she mumbled. She couldn’t figure out his attitude towards her. Did he hate her? Was he choosing to tolerate her? Did he pity her?

“So don’t do it, do we have a deal?” 

“Sure,” she said, wondering if he heard the laced sarcasm within her words. Natalie wasn’t certain what this deal entirely consisted of, but if it meant he would not bother her in front of everyone at dinner, she would not attempt to argue the terms. 

“Excellent,” Abraxas muttered, and vanished within the crowd of Slytherins streaming into the common room. Natalie, bewildered, followed them in. She briefly gaped with awe at the luxurious, enigmatic Slytherin common room before falling into step with the other first years girls her age and searching for their dormitory. 

Natalie was rooming with Quinn Bulstrode, Melania Crouch, and Pamela Selwyn, the three girls she had sat with at dinner earlier. Now, they properly introduced themselves to each other. Natalie did not miss the wrinkling noses in response to her last name. She chose to ignore this, opting instead, to select the bed closest to the glass which peered out into the murky green depths of the Black Lake. 

As she stared into the swirling waters, she was overcome with an exhilarating feeling that the next seven years were going to be nothing short of magical. 


	2. Year I: Roots

The first few weeks of classes were a whirlwind. Natalie carried herself through the halls of Hogwarts with a mask of cool nonchalance. She had not realized how much her mother had managed to teach her in the past eleven years, and as a result, felt a bit disappointed in each of her classes. 

Charms was rudimentary, Transfiguration merely required concentration, Potions was a breeze, Astronomy, introductory, History of Magic a bore, Defense Against the Dark Arts nothing more than elementary, and Herbology was just downright annoying. 

Abraxas had ignored her presence in the school, and she had no intention of not returning the favor. Her roommates, Bulstrode, Crouch, and Selwyn were pleasant enough, but she only saw them when she woke up in the morning and then again, before going to bed. While outwardly polite to her, she sensed they harbored a simmering resentment over her being the only half-blood in the dormitory they shared, as if it sullied their reputations.

It was inevitable that Natalie Borealis found herself in the Hogwarts library everyday once classes began. Now that she was immersed in the youthful wizarding community, she simply had to find out everything her mother had not had the chance to teach her. With every spell, curse, magical creature, object, ingredient, and person she learned, she felt as though she was recruiting an army to be used at her sole disposal, for any situation imaginable. But for what war, she was unsure. Only that any and every tidbit of knowledge she could cram into her sponge-like brain could be useful someday. 

It hadn’t escaped her attentive eye that another student appeared to have the same intentions as her. Tom Riddle seemed to be as consistently determined to learn everything the library could offer the first years as Natalie Borealis. 

Every day, while the rest of the school remained at lunch, and then again after dinner, the two would find themselves at adjacent tables in the library, studiously pouring through whatever text or manuscript had caught their eye that day. Neither spoke a word to the other, only noting the other’s continued presence with a small nod.

It wasn’t until this had occurred several times, did one of them finally use words to acknowledge the other.

“Did you understand the instructions for the Charms essay?” Tom Riddle’s voice quietly broke the silence in the back of the library. 

Natalie glanced up from her reading to stare at the other first year at the table next to her. His eyes had not even lifted themselves from the parchment and books in front of him. Without bothering to respond, she reached into her bag, pulled out a scroll of parchment, and tossed the essay over to him. It landed on top of the book he was poring over, making him briefly look up at the blonde girl as though he did not expect her to interpret his question in the way she did. 

“Did you understand the instructions for the Transfiguration essay?” she asked him, her voice assuming the same impassive tone he had used. At this, Tom Riddle blinked as though taken aback by her equal demand from him, before a slight smirk tugged at his lips. He procured his own scroll of parchment and sent it her way. 

Then only the sound of scratching quills could be heard between them, as each used the other’s work to fine tune and inspect their own. Returning them to their proper owners with a nod of thanks when the austere librarian finally ushered them out.

  
  
  
  


If there was one thing Natalie eagerly awaited, it was flying lessons. She had been a natural on a broom since she was four years old, and had specifically ensured Theia Borealis consented her permission for her daughter to try out for the house team months before attending Hogwarts. She was as fond of Quidditch as she was of learning a new charm or hex. And those she enjoyed quite frequently. 

Flying lessons for the first years arrived on a blustery September day a few weeks into the school year. And it was just as well; team tryouts started up at the end of the month. 

“You’re Malfoy’s cousin, right?” Natalie found herself being greeted by a Ravenclaw as the students poured onto the Quidditch pitch for their lessons. 

“Yes,” Natalie replied, not at all unnerved by the manner in which she was addressed by the girl. Two more Ravenclaws joined her, studying Natalie with curiosity.

“I’m Sarah Abbott, Ravenclaw, as you can tell,” the witch gestured to her blue trimmed robes. 

“Natalie Borealis,” she said, her emotionless gray eyes regarded the brunette Ravenclaw. She looked familiar, and it struck her that they shared Potions and Charms together. “Though I assume you knew that.”

“I didn’t know your name, just that you’re Abraxas Malfoy’s cousin and are considered a blood-traitor,” Sarah informed her bluntly, but with a humorous smile. 

“My reputation precedes me,” Natalie quipped, and the group of Ravenclaws giggled in amusement. 

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Sarah turned to the two girls beside her. “This is Claire Griggs,” she gestured to the plump, honey-haired girl who gave her a shy wave. “And this is Elizabeth Putnam.” The other girl, with olive skin and doe-like dark eyes smiled at her. Natalie twitched her lips up in a return smile. 

“So, have you flown at all before?” Elizabeth asked, initiating a conversation. Natalie hesitated, unprepared for the sudden attention from the three Ravenclaws. She had hoped to silently enjoy the flying lesson alone, but now it looked as though she would have three other witches attached to her side. 

“Yeah, I’ve been flying for a while,” Natalie said, and Sarah Abbott enthusiastically commented upon this before launching into a story about how she desperately wished to try out for the Ravenclaw team, but her parents refused to give her permission.

“-I mean, I suppose I could forge my father’s signature, it would be quite easy,” Sarah babbled aloud, much to Natalie’s annoyance. The Ravenclaw was beginning to remind her of the bubbly girl on the train. “But what if they find out? I would  _ never  _ be allowed to play Quidditch!”

The instructor appeared on the field and began ordering them to stand beside the rows of lined up brooms. 

To Natalie’s exasperation, the Ravenclaws followed her and placed themselves right beside her. Sarah still trying to engage her in conversation. Natalie gave her monosyllabic replies until the instructor began shouting at them, and everyone fell silent.

“Hands out over your brooms, and say, ‘up!’” was the order. Natalie immediately extended her hand out and urged her broom up. It flew into her hand in a heartbeat, leaving a grin on her face. She glanced around as her classmates struggled, and a sliver of concern trickled its way into her mind; why was she easily able to accomplish this, but her peers were not?

“How did you do that?” came a low voice to her left. Natalie looked over to find Tom Riddle, the boy she usually only saw in the library, and sitting silently in class. He stared at the broom resting comfortably in her hand, as though she had cast some sort of charm on it. 

“I held my hand out and said up,” Natalie explained as though it ought to be obvious, which did nothing but annoy him.

“Why did it only work for you?” he pointed out the overarching theme of failure between the Slytherins and Ravenclaws. 

She shrugged before monotonously stating, “maybe because I actually want to ride it.”

“What spell did you use?” Natalie’s eyes narrowed at this question, flashing stormy gray at her fellow Slytherin. Was Riddle intent on insisting she cheated?

“The wanting the broom to rise into my hand spell,” she said with cool sarcasm, and in spite of the clear intonation of her voice, he still did not look convinced. 

“Wait, you used a spell to get the broom into your hand?” Sarah Abbott had only heard a snippet of the conversation beside her, and assumed the rest. Her voice was loud enough that it attracted the attention of many others, who whipped their heads over to see what the commotion was all about.

At this, Natalie Borealis sighed. It was going to be a long flying lesson.

  
  
  
  


Sarah Abbott slid into the seat beside Natalie Borealis in their Potions classroom. Professor Slughorn had yet to appear and class would not begin for at least ten minutes. But both, per usual, were early, along with several other of their classmates. 

“Hello, again,” Sarah greeted her with a smile. Natalie returned it automatically.

“Hi,” she said, shifting her cauldron slightly over so the Ravenclaw could join her. 

“You’re good in this class, right?” Sarah’s voice dropped to a whisper, as if sharing a juicy secret with the blonde Slytherin.

“Er, sure,” Natalie said, blinking at the brown-eyed girl, not entirely certain why this was of importance.

“Do you mind if we work together this class? Slughorn said we could work in pairs when we finally start making potions, which is this week,” Sarah’s voice was so genuine, Natalie could not refuse, despite preferring to work alone, finding it much more efficient.

“Okay,” Natalie agreed, giving her another smile.

“Great,” Sarah grinned, placing her cauldron and textbook on the table. “So is it true your father is famous? I heard some Hufflepuffs talking about it at breakfast the other day.”

“He’s a professional muggle football player,” Natalie explained, “was it Shelby Cox? She asked for his autograph the moment she recognized my last name.”

“Yup, it was her and Kendall Stevenson,” Sarah said with a laugh, before her face grew serious. “But I don’t know what football is. . . .”

“It’s a muggle sport where the players kick a black and white ball around the field and try to get it in the other team’s goal,” Natalie informed the pureblood witch. “At least here in Britain.”

“What do you mean?” Sarah seemed flabbergasted by this, which Natalie found incredibly amusing. 

“In America they play another sport, which is also called football but it’s played with a different type of ball and involves a lot of tackling each other and falling into piles.”

“That’s bloody insane,” Sarah Abbott was astounded, and Natalie giggled. “Two different sports called the exact same name? What were the muggles thinking?”

“I have no idea,” Natalie said, shaking her head. By now, Professor Slughorn had arrived. Natalie, like the rest of the Slytherins, fell into a respectful silence upon the appearance of their head of house. 

“I mean, it’s silly if you possess even half a brain,” Sarah seemed to wish to continue the conversation despite the fact that Slughorn had begun speaking to the class. 

“Yeah,” Natalie said, keeping her eyes on Slughorn and uncorking her ink bottle to take notes on the lesson. 

“Miss Abbott, please do not speak while I am instructing,” the chiding voice of Professor Slughorn made both girls jump as the rotund Potions professor called her out in front of the entire class. He gave Sarah a stern look before his gaze roved over to Natalie, who quickly averted her eyes but not before catching the jovial twinkle that sparked in the professor’s eyes. 

“Sorry, Professor,” Sarah flushed red under the stares of their classmates until Slughorn moved on with his lecture. 

“You’re his favorite student,” Sarah proceeded to whisper under her breath to Natalie.

“Don’t be silly,” Natalie ventured a reply, “we’ve barely been here for a month.”

“So? He still likes you. You and that Riddle kid with the scary eyes who sits in the front. I bet he’s going to ask you both to join his secret club when you’re old enough in fourth year,” Sarah sounded rather excited. 

“Hardly a secret club if everyone knows about it,” Natalie snorted to herself, shaking her head at this.

“Say again?” Sarah had evidently not heard her.

“Miss Abbott, if you continue to speak in my class I am going to have to ask you to leave,” Professor Slughorn sounded much more irritated this time. 

“Sorry, Professor,” Sarah chirruped, then shot a glance towards the blonde Slytherin beside her as though to prove her point. Natalie simply shrugged, though the girls shared a smile nonetheless.

  
  
  
  


Tryouts for the Slytherin team were held at dusk on a chilly autumn evening. Most of Slytherin house milled about the pitch, only a handful there to actually try out for the team. The rest came to watch. Their team had enjoyed relative success the past few years, but with last year’s class having graduated, the key roles of Seeker, Keeper, and Chaser were up for grabs. The Quidditch team being a source of great pride for the entire house, it was essential these spots were filled by the skill and talent that would lead Slytherin to another victorious season.

“Listen up!” Winky Crockett’s voice bellowed over the field. The captain hopped onto his broom and began trying to maintain a semblance of order over the madness. “Get off the bloody field if you aren’t here to fly laps!”

His words sent most of the mob streaming towards the stands, until a small group of Slytherins remained. 

Natalie Borealis was one of these. With a slight jolt, she realized she was the only first year. She swallowed back her nerves and steeled herself; she was good on a broom, she would prove herself to them. 

Crockett was true to his words, the first thing he made the group do was mount their brooms and race around the pitch as fast as possible. He tailed them, urging them onwards with a combination of encouraging compliments and blatant threats. 

Natalie took this all in stride. Once she was in the air, the anxious bubbling in the pit of her stomach dissipated and she relished in the brisk wind rushing past her, whipping her braided blonde hair against her back. She streaked through the air, following the group of Slytherins until she had to glance back in confusion because she now led them by quite a large gap. 

“DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU, BOREALIS!” Crockett’s voice howled through the air, making her realize she had slowed down. Letting out a squeak of alarm, she leaned forwards again, urging her broom onward. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.

The captain then unleashed six different Bludgers and whacked them at the group still doing laps around the stadium. He succeeded in, quite literally, culling the herd. A few Slytherins could not dodge in time and were sent spinning down to the ground, more disappointed than hurt.

Natalie came disturbingly close to a collision with a Bludger approaching in her blind spot. A sudden feeling of trepidation darkened her senses, so she rolled to the right, spinning her entire body down and under her broom while the Bludger sailed over with a whining noise. 

Spotting her agile move, Crockett barked a quick word of praise at her, which triggered a grin to spark across her flushed face. 

The rest of the tryout was a complete blur. She hit Bludgers, lobbed Quaffles, and seized Snitches until her body ached. She thought of nothing but performing her best and hoped it would be enough. 

“Malfoy!” Winky Crockett beckoned Abraxas to him once he called an end to the tryout and those who survived began to land. 

The third year swaggered over to the captain, confidence oozing off him. He knew his Beater position was in no way threatened. 

“Why the bloody hell didn’t you tell me your cousin is a natural!?” The withholding of such information was the equivalent of casting an Unforgivable Curse in the captain’s books.

Abraxas gave him a dumbfounded look, as though confused why the conversation was about Natalie and not himself. “I. . . didn’t know.”

“Well, I guess now I know, then, don’t I?” Crockett snapped, “I don’t care if she’s a first year, or if she’s a blood traitor. She’s going to be our Seeker, and she’s going to be a damn good one too.”


	3. Year I: The First Game

Slytherin’s first Quidditch match took forever to arrive. But like all things, eventually it did just that. 

Natalie opened her eyes on the day of the game and grinned up at the smooth stone ceiling of the Slytherin dormitory. She was terribly anxious, but her excitement had the upper hand. She had been practicing for weeks with the team, knowing that as the youngest player in the entire school, she had to prove herself to the entire school. 

Winky Crockett would never admit it to her, but she knew he was dealing with the berating of the Quidditch aficionados in the school, questioning the captain’s decision to allow a first year to play for the team. He was only a fourth year, young for a Quidditch captain, and himself awaiting an opportunity to demonstrate that his skill made up for his youth. She had to prove it to everyone, for her sake, Crockett’s sake, and the team’s sake. 

Natalie woke long before Bulstrode, Crouch, and Selwyn, so she hurriedly dressed in her Quidditch robes, made sure her blonde hair was secure in a braid, and quietly snuck out of the dorm. 

The common room was empty save for Crockett, awaiting the arrival of his team so they could attend breakfast together. 

“Ready, Borealis?” Crockett rubbed his hands together in anticipation for the game, but she knew he was just as nervous as he was excited. 

“Yes,” she replied in a steady voice, though she gave him a grin, knowing she could release all her emotions once in the air. 

“I’m loving the attitude,” Crockett drawled as the other members of the team trickled into the common room. “First one ready, calm but composed. Confident and cool, but also humble and realistic. Not letting the excitement get to you until you can channel it into the game later.”

At this broad assessment, Natalie blinked in confusion. “All I said was yes.”

“Your mouth did. Your face and eyes said a different story,” Crockett laughed, turning to high-five Baldric Parkinson, one of the team’s Chasers, upon his arrival. 

It was a few more minutes before the team assembled, (there was a bit of complaining about having to “all go down to breakfast together so early” which was followed by Crockett criticizing such attitudes) and the team left for the Great Hall. 

“Hey, uh, Natalie,” a quiet voice from behind her caused her to turn to find Abraxas Malfoy, her cousin, appear at her side. He was a Beater for Slytherin, and had, for the most part, ignored her presence on the team. Until now, apparently. 

“Hi, Abraxas,” she greeted him, not wishing to descend into a petty family squabble on such an exciting morning.

“Look, I, er, I just want to apologize for how I’ve been acting around you, and for what I said after the sorting,” he cleared his throat, clearly having rehearsed this conversation in his head many times. Natalie stayed quiet, astonished by his apology, but grateful for it. They were cousins after all, who her father was should not cause a divide between them. 

He coughed, keeping his voice low as their teammates laughed and joked around them. “Your father might be a muggle, and we might have different last names, but we’re family. I mean, we even look alike. And, well, now we’re teammates, too.” Abraxas’ voice lightened, turning the serious topic humorous but still sentimental. “And I’m going to be seeing you everyday for the next several years so might as well not make it miserable.”

“So,” Natalie met his nearly identical gray eyes with a smile; she was ecstatic their relationship looked ripe to improve. He was the only family she knew in the magical world, save her mother, who lived in the muggle world. “All’s forgiven on my end. Cousins, then?”

“Cousins,” he agreed with a smile and gestured to the others around them, “and teammates. The team is like an exclusive club within the already exclusive club that is Slytherin. These are the greatest people you’ll ever meet — so no pressure, but catch the Snitch today. We’re all depending on you.”

Natalie’s eyes widened at his words, and she began nodding. “I’m going to catch it. I don’t want to promise anything, but I’m going to catch it.”

Abraxas grinned at her as they reached the Great Hall. “We’ve all seen you fly, you’ll do fine. Great, even.”

She would have to get used to Abraxas being nice instead of ignoring her. But it was certainly a welcome change and she was happy about it. She returned his grin, “I’ll catch it.”

A quick (but nourishing) breakfast, a pep talk from Crockett (who sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than the team), a word of luck from their head of house, and they were on their way to the pitch, excitement mounting. 

It wasn’t until Natalie had mounted her broom and kicked off into the air did she come to terms with the game. She was the youngest Quidditch player in the school, facing off against Slytherin’s eternal rival, Gryffindor, and she held the most important position — Seeker. If they lost, it was on her. She would only lose if it killed her. 

It was a blur. A complete blur. Sights; the bright blue autumn sky, the harvest yellow sun, the shimmering green grass below, and specks of silver and emerald and red and gold bouncing around between them. Sounds; the sweeping roar of the spectators, the faint shouts between the players, and the inhuman whining of the wind spinning past. The firm wood of her broom the only constant as she patrolled the skies like a hungry predator, prowling for a glimpse of the elusive snitch. She was aware of nothing else. 

It was some time into the game when the announcer, a Hufflepuff with a bias toward Gryffindor, declared the score eighty to sixty, the lions in the lead. Natalie let out a groan, her eyes still jumping around the stadium. She had no idea how long the game had been going on for, it felt like years, decades even. 

Anxiety began to creep over her; everyone was expecting her to catch the Snitch. They were waiting on her, the entire game dependent on her alone. Was she taking too long? How long did games at Hogwarts usually last? Were they shorter than this? What if she was letting her team, and her entire house, down? 

Suddenly the pressure was overwhelming, and her heart began thumping wildly as her breathing quickened. Terrified this would interrupt her concentration, she shook her head, braid whipping back and forth as she tried to clear her brain. She had to focus on the Snitch, nothing else. 

“Alright, c’mon, where is it,” Natalie grumbled, deciding to drop downwards and cruise closer to the gameplay. She had been hovering a fair distance above the game, preferring a bird’s eye view, able to see every movement on the entire field. She was getting impatient. She wanted to catch the Snitch, now. She wanted to win the game, now. 

“It’s literally a golden ball, it should be reflecting off the sun — oh, Merlin!” she exclaimed, for as this realization dawned, her gray eyes locked upon the one thing they had been searching for. The tiny golden Snitch. There it was. Waiting for her. 

And Natalie lost all awareness of time, all concept of her surroundings as she developed tunnel vision, her sighted prey at the end. Fluttering near the base of one of the spectator’s stands encircling the stadium — glinting in the bright sunshine that poured onto the field from the heavens. 

And she was off like a snake finally choosing to strike its meal. Decisive and vigorous, and unaware of the screams that echoed in reaction to her movement. All she saw was her end goal: to clutch the game-ending snitch in her fists. She wanted nothing else. 

And nothing else was on her mind as she sped towards her objective like a careening asteroid, sure of its aim, its mission. It was all on her now, she couldn’t let anyone down. Not this first time. 

The Gryffindor Seeker fast on her tail, she paid him no mind. He was nothing but an annoyance as she streaked towards the Snitch — her Snitch. The roar of the stadium around her seemed to culminate as she neared the game’s objective. It built, and built, and built — and then it broke: the second she stretched a hand forwards, and snatched the snitch from the air, just a few feet from the ground. 

Locking her fingers around the cold metal, she raised her fist into the air with a shout of triumph, which was echoed by her teammates, and then by her entire house. 

The rush; from the dive, the snatch, the triumph, then the crowd’s reaction was incredible: victory was intoxicating, and reality seemed sweeter than any candy Honeydukes could dream up. 

Leaping off her broom before she could crash, she dove towards the ground, landing on her shoulder but leaning into a roll which propelled her back onto her feet with athletic grace just as her team dropped around her. She held the Snitch out to them, and they erupted. 

“THAT WAS BLOODY AMAZING!” Crockett screamed as Natalie was swamped by them, and then by Slytherin house, who began pouring onto the field to congratulate their team on the first win of the year. 

As she was swept up into the rapturous crowd, she realized she was smiling so wide she was practically laughing, with pure, unrivaled euphoria; that was when she knew she wanted to spend the next seven years on the Quidditch pitch.


	4. Year IV: In Media Res

Rebecca Macmillan was going to do it again. The Gryffindor was going to open her seemingly never closed mouth and ask the professor a question which verged on the edge of ludicrous. 

Her fellow Gryffindors all knew it; they smirked to themselves and shifted eagerly in their seats, her questions meant the last twenty minutes of class would be meaningless — and lunch would come all the sooner.

The Slytherins, who shared the Defense Against the Dark Arts class with the lions, knew it as well; they groaned inwardly to themselves, aggravated not necessarily by her tenacious resolve to waste their time but by the fact that it was Rebecca Macmillan. It was only the first week of classes and Macmillan was already being her annoying self. 

“Excuse me, Professor Merrythought!” the brunette’s airy voice rang out across the classroom, her hand flung up into the air with a flourish. 

“Yes, Miss Macmillan?” Professor Merrythought paused in her lecture about the lingering effects of the Cruciatus Curse to allow for the question.

“I was wondering if you could explain why the wand motion must be correct when casting a jinx even if the words are pronounced right?”

On the Slytherin side of the classroom, two pairs of eyes, one light gray, the other dark charcoal, met and exchanged a brief communication of their annoyance at Rebecca Macmillan. Had the scene happened on a muggle television show, the question followed by the glance of irritation would have incited an outburst of laughter from the audience. 

Natalie Borealis and Tom Riddle exchanged this same look at least a half dozen times a day: when one of their classmates was being particularly dull-witted, when a professor insisted a subject matter was beyond the scope of the class, when someone had the audacity to speak above a whisper in the library, when the common room grew louder than necessary after curfew. You never wanted to be the reason for this look.

Professor Merrythought attempted to answer Macmillan’s question, only for her to produce another, equally imaginative and inane. 

Tom Riddle and Natalie Borealis continued staring at each other, their exasperation and thoughts of what curse they would like to use on Rebecca Macmillan swirling within their eyes. 

Eric Dawson, their fellow Slytherin, sat in between the two. He was there at Natalie’s request so when she and Tom made to share their feelings through their eyes, it would not be as noticeable as if they were sitting immediately next to the other. This had occurred once in an Ancient Runes class, which led the professor to scold them for “allowing their romantic attraction to distract them in the classroom”. 

It had taken two weeks of Natalie pretending to be in a relationship with Adolphus Lestrange, one of her close friends on the Quidditch team, to squash the rumors that had spread from this.

Eric Dawson was having considerable trouble maintaining his composure, despite having agreed to the seat placement. Being in the middle of the two Slytherins’ acute gazes was a daunting task, even if the condemned subject was not himself. But the green-eyed fourth year was encountering difficulty in preventing his laughter from spilling out. 

“You guys are killing me,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, while Merrythought continued answering the relentless questions. 

“No, we’re killing Macmillan,” Natalie whispered under her breath, for the Unforgivable curse was plainly evident within the crossroads of her’s and Tom’s stare. 

“You guys like when I waste class time in Herbology,” Dawson commented, causing Tom to smirk to himself.

“Because Herbology is boring and you waste time in a more entertaining fashion than Macmillan,” Natalie said, her voice audible only to the two boys. 

“I'm entertaining, princess?” Dawson repeated with flirtatious glee. He ran a hand through his perpetually windswept honey-blond hair and sent a wink in her direction. She scoffed at this while Tom rolled his eyes. The Quidditch team’s nickname for, and obsession with Natalie Borealis wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. 

“In a degenerate way,” Tom said with a slight sneer to the boy on his left. Dawson took it with a cocky grin, accustomed to Riddle’s oddly possessive manner whenever Natalie was involved. His grin quickly faded, however, when Professor Merrythought called him out.

“Mr. Dawson, wipe that smirk off your face, there is nothing funny about the 1576 case of Eggert the Estranged improperly performing the Tickling hex on his wife and causing her to spontaneously combust!” 

The Gryffindors burst into sniggers as the embarrassed Slytherin turned bright red. 

“Of course not, Professor,” Dawson managed to cover his flusterment, annoyed he had been targeted by Merrythought while the two pupils on either side of him were shooting amused grins from their eyes at each other. 

Eric Dawson suspected part of the reason why Natalie always asked him to sit between them was because if they were caught speaking in class, he was always apt to be the one to get in trouble. Together with Adolphus Lestrange, the Slytherin jokester had developed quite a reputation for himself in their four years at Hogwarts, which not even the silver statuses of Natalie Borealis or Tom Riddle could save him from. 

When Rebecca Macmillan yapped for Merrythought’s attention again, Dawson shot a glare first to his right, at Tom Riddle, who raised an eyebrow at him in an aristocratically demeaning expression, then to his left, at Natalie Borealis, who allowed a small smile to grace her face before she returned his wink. 

This last action left his palms sweaty and his face flushed. He would never admit he had fancied the blonde since last year when he joined her on the house Quidditch team; his flirtation with her was a joke, (at least she believed it to be), the entire Quidditch team, save her cousin, would flirt with the only girl on the team as a sort of fond camaraderie, but it didn’t mean anything more than that.

You did not admit you fancied Natalie Borealis; this was a known fact. She exuded a subtle but powerful aura that she was unapproachable unless you were worthy enough. And even then, she was fond of utilizing strategic silences and dry sarcasm to make any undesired social situation an uncomfortable nightmare. 

Fortunately, Eric Dawson was lucky enough to have integrated himself into the exclusive group of people who were allowed to glimpse the fierce, wild, and undeniably fun aspects of her personality. He believed this was mainly due to the fact that he had joined the Quidditch team — the entire team had the privilege of knowing her loud, stubborn, and vehement side because of the athletic experiences they shared. 

This year, the tight-knit team included himself, Abraxas Malfoy, Adolphus Lestrange, Reynard Shafiq, Giles Morrison, Jonathan Shaw, and Evan Rosier. The only other students who possessed some sort of tangible connection with Natalie were Tom Riddle, who, since second year, seemed to think it was his duty to accompany her to and from meals, classes, and the library; and her group of Ravenclaw friends; Claire Griggs, Elizabeth Putnam, and Sarah Abbott. 

“Finally!” Natalie Borealis groaned once the bell had rung and the Slytherins made to depart. She bolted out of the classroom, Tom Riddle and Eric Dawson close on her heels, tearing past the slow-moving Gryffindors still packing their bags and heading towards the Great Hall for lunch. Their fellow Slytherins, Adolphus Lestrange and Evan Rosier soon caught up with them. 

“Twenty minutes wasted!” Natalie grumbled, just loud enough so only the Slytherin boys in her company could hear. “I was actually interested in today’s lesson, too!”

“About the Cruciatus Curse?” Lestrange teased her with a knowing smirk. All the Slytherins had a tendency to be fascinated with dark magic. 

“Don’t let Shafiq hear you complaining,” Dawson nudged her, a devilish grin on his face. “You know what he’ll say.”

“If you’re complaining you’re not leading!” Rosier adopted an overly energetic and aggressive tone to mock their Quidditch captain’s intense attitude towards the sport.

Lestrange and Dawson burst into laughter at this imitation, though Tom Riddle rolled his eyes. Natalie Borealis, meanwhile, came to an unexpected halt in the middle of the hallway, making Riddle spin on heel and tug her just out of the way before Dawson could collide into her. 

She ignored his warning hand on her shoulder as she narrowed her incensed gray eyes at her two teammates.

“Uh-oh,” Lestrange muttered; the three boys came to a stop before the blonde. Her gray eyes sparked together like flintstones, the way they did when something broke through her carefree exterior and violated a moral principle she held on a pedestal. “It was just a joke, princess.”

“Really?” she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at her three teammates. “Because I would think that type of attitude reveals your overall lack of dedication and commitment to the team. How you practice certainly hints at it.”

Rosier began groaning while Lestrange sighed and Dawson tried to stifle a snicker. The amusement burning in Riddle’s eyes went unseen by Natalie.

“I’m sorry, princess,” Rosier immediately spouted an apology, unwilling to inflame her further. She was always like this when it came to Quidditch: deadly serious. Sometimes, it was terrifying. But it had helped them win the House Cup the past three years. 

“Maybe you should prove that at practice tonight,” she quipped, tossing her loose blonde hair over her shoulder and allowing Riddle to steer her around and towards the Great Hall before she could launch into a rant. 

“Merlin, I hope she’s never captain,” Lestrange muttered under his breath as the three followed Riddle and Borealis into the Great Hall.

“She will be,” Dawson snorted. Natalie Borealis had been groomed to be future Quidditch captain since Winky Crockett named her their Seeker in first year. “No doubt about it.”

“Yeah, well, I’m bloody terrified of the drills she’s going to put us through,” Lestrange squeaked at the thought. “She’ll probably try to put us on her bloody ‘Quidditch diet’ and ban us from going to Hogsmeade when we have a game coming up.”

“Shut it! Don’t give her ideas!” Rosier hissed, whacking Lestrange’s shoulder.

“The Quidditch diet was Shafiq’s idea!” Natalie called behind to the boys, making Rosier smack Lestrange again for having failed to keep his voice down. Dawson let out a bark of laughter, which incited Lestrange to punch him just as they entered the Great Hall.

“Lestrange!” the deep voice of Reynard Shafiq cut through the chatter as they arrived at the Slytherin table. “We would like to  _ avoid  _ injuries to the team inflicted by our own teammates.”

“Rosier started it!” Lestrange protested as they took their usual places around the table. 

Tom Riddle and Natalie Borealis in the middle of the group, Eric Dawson and Adolphus Lestrange across from them, with Evan Rosier next to Riddle and Reynard Shafiq claiming Natalie’s other side. Lloyd Avery and Zacharias Nott each in the spots next to Dawson and Lestrange. Abraxas Malfoy was already beside Shafiq, the prefect pored over a list of names he was submitting to receive detention and pretending to ignore their Quidditch banter.

The group was made up entirely of those who admired Tom Riddle and adored Natalie Borealis. On its edges, Melania Crouch sat a few seats away from Abraxas Malfoy, the two kept making eye contact and blushing, to no one’s notice. Pamela Selwyn and Quinn Bulstrode were beside Crouch, gossiping and giggling to themselves, and shooting members of the Quidditch team occasional glances. 

Upon their arrival, Jonathan Shaw and Giles Morrison were quick to insert themselves between their fellow teammates. Further down the table, Callidora and Cassiopeia Black, two years younger, were clustered within their own group of friends. On the other side, Olive Hornby, along with a few of her close friends were sniggering amongst themselves.

“I don’t care who started it,” Shafiq barked, his chest puffing out to fully encompass the Quidditch captain badge he wore with immense pride, even though it clashed rather horribly with his bright red hair. “I want it ended, now.”

“Hey, Shafiq,” the intonation of Natalie’s voice drew all eyes to her, it was a low purr with a hint of sarcasm. Which could be hilarious or horrifying, depending on whose expense it was at. “Lestrange, Dawson, and Rosier were just telling me they can’t wait for practice tonight.”

“And why do I find that hard to believe?” Shafiq turned to flash a look at the three mentioned. Humorously innocent expressions were displayed upon each of their faces. The captain shook his head at his players, half serious, half joking. 

“Probably because it’s a complete bluff,” Abraxas droned, not bothering to look up from his list but his comment revealing he had been listening to their conversation the entire time. 

“Thank you for pointing out the obvious, dear cousin,” Natalie cooed with a smile, then reached over to tap a finger on a name on the list he was scouring. “By the way, Charissa Martins was seen using the Bat-Bogey Hex on Harley Payton by Callidora Black this morning.”

“How do you know that?” both Tom and Abraxas demanded from the blonde. 

“Because she told me,” Natalie deadpanned the obvious with such latent humor that after a moment of silence, everyone around her burst into laughter, save Tom and her cousin, who merely sighed. 

“Oi, hate to interrupt this,” the voice of Sarah Abbott floated through to the laughing Slytherins. All turned to watch the brunette Ravenclaw approach them, looking unfazed by the sheer number of snakes staring at her. “Can we borrow Nat for a bit? I promise we’ll give her back to you in one piece.”

“I don’t know, Abbott,” Shafiq hummed, wrapping an arm over Natalie’s shoulders and pulling her into his side, making her wiggle in weak protest. “Our Seeker is pretty valuable to our team. You trying to steal her for Ravenclaw? Learn our team secrets?”

“Quidditch doesn’t start until the end of this month,” Abbott crossed her arms and rolled her eyes in a taunting manner. Sarah had been a Chaser on the Ravenclaw team since last year, but never understood how obsessed Slytherin house was with the sport. “Already got your game strategy, do you, Shafiq?”

“Yes,” Shafiq raised his eyebrows as though offended she even asked him this question. “Does Ravenclaw not?”

“We think it’s foolish to devise a game strategy before even knowing what the team you’re facing is going to be like,” Abbott shrugged, then reached a hand out to tug on the back of Natalie’s robes. “C’mon, Nat, Lizzie wants to talk to you.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Natalie swatted the captain’s arm off her shoulders, but gave him a mocking little pat on the head as she rose from her seat. “I’ll be back boys, don’t worry. I’ll try to steal some of Ravenclaw’s team secrets, how does that sound?”

“Sounds excellent,” Adolphus Lestrange had to pipe up. His mouth being full of pumpkin juice at the same time, however, caused him to dribble liquid all down the front of his robes and begin wetly coughing. 

“You’re disgusting, Lestrange,” Shafiq barked at him, while Abraxas Malfoy grimaced in horror, tucking his list away to avoid any pumpkin juice spatter, and Eric Dawson pounded his teammate’s back, forcing him to cough up any juice that had made its way into his lungs. The rest of the team howled with laughter; even Natalie let out a chuckle before allowing Sarah to drag her off to the eagles’ table. 

“Hi,” the Slytherin plopped into a seat beside Claire Griggs and across from Elizabeth Putnam. Sarah Abbott resumed her place beside Claire. “Sarah said you wanted to talk?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth dropped her fork beside her plate, wiped her mouth with a napkin, and sent a peek down the table to where Marcellus Thorpe sat. Thorpe was a tall, handsome Ravenclaw of their same year, but with a rather ruthless attitude, especially when it came to exams season. Last year, he had allegedly hexed a first year straight into the hospital wing for dropping an inkpot in the Ravenclaw common room during exam week. 

“You like him,” after studying this for a moment, Natalie smirked at her friend, watching her olive complexion tint red at her words. The napkin she clutched falling back down to the table.

“She does,” Claire Griggs giggled, hiding her face behind a wave of blonde hair when Elizabeth threw a furious glare at her. 

“Yes, who’d have thought the most flirtatious Ravenclaw our house has ever seen has developed a not-so-little crush on Thorpe, of all people,” Sarah sang out, attracting Elizabeth’s enraged glare. “Who will it be next week, though?”

“Be quiet! He’ll hear you!” Putnam snapped, flinging the napkin across the table at the other girl.

Natalie grinned; Elizabeth’s obsession with the male gender was notorious; how she managed to keep her grades up while she constantly being on the search for her next snog was almost admirable. 

“Did you call me over to ask for advice on boys?” Natalie chuckled, reaching over to fill a goblet with pumpkin juice. She sent a glance behind her to the Slytherin table, and nearly rolled her eyes out of her head upon realizing the group she had just left were all shamelessly staring directly at her. She subtly shook her head at them, and they snickered amongst themselves. 

“No!” Elizabeth grumbled, still glaring at Sarah, who was now sending obvious kissing faces in her direction. “I was wondering if you got invited into the Slug Club. Slughorn is supposed to be sending out invitations this week to the new invitees. We’re old enough to get in now.”

“Oh, right,” Natalie blinked; she entirely forgot half the school was eagerly awaiting to hear who Slughorn had deemed worthy to join him for a networking dinner once or twice a month. She hadn't given it much thought, much more anticipating the arrival of the Quidditch season. “Er, haven’t heard anything. Or gotten anything. I suppose he hasn’t sent them out yet?”

“Guess so,” Claire Griggs sighed, “I want to get in  _ so  _ bad. My mother was in the Slug Club, she really enjoyed it, too. Says he helped her get her job at St. Mungo’s.”

“Don’t you want to work there too?” Elizabeth seized the chance to remove the attention from herself. “As a healer, right?”

“Yes,” Claire nodded, her cornflower blue eyes shining. “That’s been my dream job since I was little.”

“Nat will have no problem getting in,” Sarah said, nudging her Slytherin friend with an elbow and a smirk. “Old Sluggy’s loved you since day one.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that, exactly-”

“Oh, shut up,” Elizabeth groaned, “everyone knows Slughorn adores you and that Riddle kid.”

“That’s it!” Sarah exclaimed, slamming a hand down on the table, to everyone’s shock. “Lizzie, how much you want to bet you’ll fancy Riddle next? Ten galleons? Twenty?”

“She likes Thorpe now, though,” Claire pointed out, while Natalie shook her head in amusement. The Ravenclaw trio’s antics were always ludicrous. But also entertaining.

“Yeah,” Sarah snorted, dark eyes glinting with mischief. “Now.”

“He is pretty fit,” Elizabeth was practically craning her neck to get a look over Natalie’s shoulder at Tom Riddle, sitting at the Slytherin table and looking overly-absorbed in his plate of food. “Maybe next year.”

“I think they want you to come back,” Claire observed, nodding towards the Slytherin table, where, indeed, Shafiq, Lestrange, and Dawson were making all sorts of random gestures to catch Natalie’s attention and summon her back towards them. 

“Yeah, I think that’s what that means,” Natalie laughed at how ridiculous her teammates looked before rising from the Ravenclaw table. “Any Quidditch team secrets you want to give up before I go back?”

“Sure; our first game is against Hufflepuff,” Sarah said sarcastically, eliciting a smirk from Natalie. 

“Oh, top secret stuff, alright. Thanks for the info, traitor,” the Slytherin high-fived the Ravenclaw.

Sarah returned the smirk, “anytime.”


	5. Year IV: The Letters

The news came at breakfast later that week. With owls dropping a few more letters than normal about the hall. Natalie Borealis was about to dig into a fresh bowl of porridge when a letter landed directly in her bowl, splashing milk all about the table and sending sparks flying within her gray eyes. 

“This letter better be damned well worth it!” she snarled, temper flared by the interruption to her breakfast, the subsequent ruining of it, and the mess on the table. And it wasn’t even seven in the morning on a Thursday.

“It’s an invitation to the Slug Club,” Tom Riddle drawled, having received an identical letter at the same time. His, however, had neatly fallen onto the empty table beside him. He sat across from her, the only other Slytherin at the table; the rest of their house electing to obtain as much sleep as possible before classes started, which wasn’t for another hour. “Professor Slughorn is throwing a party on Halloween night to welcome the newcomers.”

“I wouldn’t really call that worth it,” she muttered under her breath as she pushed the bowl of spoiled porridge off to the side, tugged her wand from her pocket and waved it over the mess. It vanished instantly. She fixed herself a new bowl before scanning the ceiling for any more owls and finally opening the letter. 

“You’re right,” she stated blandly, reading Professor Slughorn’s looping scrawl on the parchment, inviting her into the Slug Club as a witch of “laudable talent and skill.”

“Obviously,” he tutted as though offended by her doubt, causing her to roll her now calmed eyes at him. “Are you going?”

“Are you?”

Tom raised an eyebrow in the fluid, aristocratic movement that always made her want to break into a grin. “I believe I asked you first.”

“We have Quidditch practice that night but. . . . Wait-”

“Slughorn is head of house, he’ll book the pitch for an earlier time-”

“-and Shafiq is in the Slug Club too,” Natalie bit her lower lip before shrugging. “Guess I am going.”

“Go with me,” Tom nonchalantly said, his tone more a command than a question. He neatly folded his letter up and tucked it away before returning to his breakfast. 

“What?” Natalie asked, confused as to why he should ask her to go with him when he clearly knew she was already invited. 

“The letter says we are allowed to bring a date,” Tom’s dark eyes looked at her as though she were stupid. “I have no wish to be pestered by the likes of Olive Hornby or Shelby Cox who are not in the Slug Club but want to be taken along simply so they can have the privilege of claiming they attended a Slug Club dinner. And I know you have no wish to be bothered by students such as Neil Lament or Howard Snyde who will do the same to you. So we solve both our problems by attending together. It’s mutually beneficial.”

Natalie stared at him before nodding in agreement. “I like this arrangement.”

“Good, we’ll make it permanent, then,” Tom said rather flippantly, and was evidently not interested in furthering the conversation by becoming thoroughly engrossed in spreading marmalade on a piece of toast. Natalie had no desire to continue it either, finding the terms pleasing. 

“Nat! Oi, Nat!” the shouts of her Ravenclaw friends rang through the hall as the trio rushed towards the Slytherin table and piled into the seats around her. Tom Riddle ignored them, accustomed to the sudden appearance of the Ravenclaws around Natalie Borealis at any given time of day. 

“You got one!” Claire gasped, noting the parchment laying beside her (second) bowl of porridge. “Sarah got one too!”

“You didn’t?” Natalie asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“No,” Claire looked crestfallen, “neither did Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth Putnam shrugged, indifferent about the situation. She curled a lock of her thick dark hair around a finger. “Everyone knows the fit boys play Quidditch, not attend boring dinners with their professors.”

Natalie couldn’t help herself; she burst out laughing, but not without catching the look that flashed through Tom Riddle’s charcoal eyes. “Most of the Quidditch players in the school are in the Slug Club, Lizzie, you know that, right?”

“Not Marcellus,” Elizabeth turned to eye the Ravenclaw boy who had just entered the hall with two of his friends. “And he’s certainly  _ very  _ fit.”

“If I recall correctly, Marcellus Thorpe landed himself in the hospital wing after falling off his broom during Quidditch tryouts two years ago,” Tom Riddle spoke with a smooth, casual intonation that made Elizabeth feel very silly for having opened her mouth. 

She muttered something about the Slug Club being for “nerds with no lives” before dashing off towards the Ravenclaw table, where she sat not too far away from the object of her affections. 

Natalie, meanwhile, was trying to keep a straight face from Tom’s comment; apparently she was the only one who found it hilarious. 

“Anyway,” Sarah waved aside the sudden awkwardness that grew between the remaining two Ravenclaws and Slytherins. “Who are you thinking of bringing, Nat? The invite says we can bring a date.”

“Oh, uh, not sure yet,” was Natalie’s instinctive response. She knew if she mentioned she was going with Tom, then Sarah would hit her with an interrogation as to whether or not the two were romantically involved. Because somehow that was always the implication when it came to attending the Slug Club with someone else. She met the piercing look Tom sent her way and narrowed her eyes at him, warning him not to say anything.

“Oh,” Sarah sounded disappointed. “Well, Russell Greyson fancies you, if you didn’t already know. He’s a year above, in Ravenclaw. Not in the Slug Club but I’m sure he’d love to go with you.”

“Oh,” Natalie repeated, this time out of true bewilderment. She wasn’t even sure she knew who Russell Greyson was. “I didn’t know that. Er, I’ll think about it, I guess. I’ll probably just end up going by myself, or with someone on the Quidditch team.”

“Alright,” mischief filled Sarah’s grin. “Well, can’t say I didn’t tell you he fancies you. You’re too blind to see it yourself.”

“Probably,” Natalie muttered as Sarah and Claire turned and headed to their own house table. 

“You actually didn’t know?” Tom Riddle popped the question after a moment of ruminating silence between them. By now, more of their housemates were trickling into the dining hall. The raucous laughter of Adolphus Lestrange and Eric Dawson could especially be heard, floating through the open doors and into the Great Hall. 

“Know what?” Natalie frowned, finishing the last of her porridge and eyeing the invite from Slughorn again. 

“That Greyson fancies you,” Tom elaborated with a roll of his eyes. “Have you not noticed the way he looks at you in the halls and at meals?”

“Uh, no,” Natalie admitted, feeling decidedly uncomfortable with the fact that an older Ravenclaw was apparently smitten with her, that she had no idea about it, and that she couldn’t even match the name to a face. “I haven’t noticed, I guess.”

Tom Riddle shook his head at her, his dark eyes glinting with amusement. “How is it, Borealis, that you can be so intelligent concerning some things, yet so idiotic when it comes to others?”

Natalie huffed, stuffing the invite into her bag and turning to spot Lestrange, Dawson, and Rosier enter the hall. She met their eyes and beckoned them over to their usual spots around her. While they gleefully approached, she turned back to Tom with an impassive look in her eyes. “Ask yourself that, Riddle.”


	6. Year IV: The Slug Club

The Slytherin team’s Quidditch practice was booked for an earlier time slot because Horace Slughorn was their head of house, and because Reynard Shafiq, the team captain, was also in the Slug Club. 

In fact, almost all the Slytherin team was a member of the Slug Club, due to either their pureblood backgrounds or their notable achievements during their time at Hogwarts. 

So Natalie Borealis found herself heading out of the common room and towards Slughorn’s office with a rather large collection of her fellow Slytherins. 

There was Tom Riddle, of course, looking irritated that nearly the entire Quidditch team orbited around Natalie Borealis. 

Reynard Shafiq kept engaging her in various Quidditch strategy conversations, to the annoyance of Pamela Selwyn, Natalie’s dormmate, whom Shafiq had asked to attend as his date as a favor to his Seeker. 

Adolphus Lestrange, Eric Dawson, and Evan Rosier were planning some sort of prank that, for some reason, required Natalie to know all the details. Their dates were Callidora Black, Claire Griggs, (Dawson had agreed to ask her to attend with him as a favor to Natalie, who knew how much Claire wanted an invite) and Laurinda Bates respectfully. The former two being from Ravenclaw had elected to meet the Slytherins upon arrival at Slughorn’s office. 

Abraxas Malfoy had done what Tom Riddle had wished he had decided to do, and had left for Slughorn’s office ten minutes before everyone else, with a blushing Melania Crouch as his date. 

Lloyd Avery and Zacharias Nott had not found nor wanted to bring dates, and were trailing behind Tom Riddle like ducklings after their mother. 

This large group moved through the halls of Hogwarts at a slow pace, with the boys being careful not to wrinkle their dress robes and the girls stepping methodically over the hems of their dresses. Occasionally, someone would send a spell at one of the floating pumpkins or enchanted suits of armor decorating the castle for All Hallow’s Eve and cause the pumpkin to carve itself into a jack-o-lantern, or the armor to moan as if being tortured. 

“I’m still upset Slughorn moved our practice time to earlier,” Natalie grumbled to Shafiq as the group approached the Potions professor’s office. “I had planned my entire day around practice being at this time. Not this dinner.”

“Oh, no, something messed with the princess’s plans!” Adolphus Lestrange heard this complaint and pounced, placing a hand dramatically on his forehead and pretending to faint into Eric Dawson’s arms, who caught him without a second thought. “Whatever shall she do besides look pretty in that black dress and glare at me with those frightening gray eyes?”

“Shut up, Lestrange,” Natalie snorted while Dawson and Rosier burst into laughter and Tom Riddle rolled his eyes. 

“She does look pretty, though,” Pamela Selwyn piped up from beside Reynard Shafiq, she stared at the Quidditch captain, waiting for his reaction to her compliment of Natalie and expecting him to compliment herself. 

“Yeah, you do look good, Nat,” Shafiq agreed with Selwyn’s assessment, along with Dawson, Nott, Lestrange, Avery, and Rosier, who found themselves nodding as well, much to Pamela’s disgruntlement. She mumbled something under her breath and went back to silently pacing beside Shafiq.

“I’d rather look good on a broomstick,” Natalie muttered, turning red from this type of attention from the boys. 

“Is that. . . an innuendo?” Eric Dawson’s jaw dropped, and this time, it was he who histrionically fell into Adolphus Lestrange’s arms while even the young Callidora Black and the stoic Lloyd Avery cracked entertained smiles. 

Tom Riddle was the only one shaking his head and grumbling about how slow it took them all to walk through the halls. He really should have asked Natalie to go before the rest of them had planned to, that way he could have had a chance to ask her alone if she had ever read anything in all her personal and academic research about the Gaunt family. She’d had to have stumbled across something he had not yet. 

“No!” Natalie protested over the howling laughter of Eric, Adolphus, and Evan. “It wasn’t meant to come out like that, bloody hell, you all are terrible.”

“Sure, princess, whatever you say,” Adolphus smirked, once he had set Dawson back on his feet. The two were still breathlessly leaning against the other. 

“I swear, it wasn’t,” she continued bleating against the snickering of the boys. 

“You all took forever!” the aggravated voice of Laurinda Bates interrupted the Slytherins teasing. The blonde Ravenclaw stood in a periwinkle blue dress with Claire Griggs just outside the entrance to Slughorn’s office, her arms crossed, foot tapping the ground as the group approached. 

“Sorry, something came up,” Dawson explained with a chortle before he greeted Claire Griggs with a polite nod. Griggs, however, beamed at Natalie for having arranged Dawson to ask her to accompany him. Natalie sent a grin and a nod her way. 

“Shall we go in?” Tom addressed the group. “I’m sure Professor Slughorn is upset with us all for arriving late.”

“We’re actually on time,” Natalie smirked at him, gray eyes crackling when a quick spell revealed the time to him. 

He shot her a cold look, annoyed she had challenged him in front of the entire group, though none seemed to notice. They were all too busy chatting amongst themselves by now.

Natalie went in first, pulling open the door and stepping into the office. It was awaft with seasonal scents and seemed to be filled with a dark smoke to fit the mood of the holiday. Carved pumpkins spun in the air, the only source of light in the room. Spiderwebs dropped from the ceiling and Natalie thought she spotted a few bats flying about. 

“Ah, right on time!” Professor Slughorn’s voice boomed through the dimly lit room and the rotund Potions professor appeared. He waddled over to them, flaunting black robes and blood red slippers. 

“Miss Borealis, Mr. Riddle so glad to see my two brightest students! I see you’ve brought the rest of your house — I was worried until Mr. Malfoy informed me you were all arriving together. Such house unity, it really is admirable!”

“We’re a team, Professor,” Natalie smiled. “We just got out of practice an hour ago.”

“Such dedication to the sport, are you at all considering a professional career in Quidditch, Miss Borealis?” Just like that, Slughorn was networking. 

He began sidling towards one of the tables holding platters of finger-foods and wines, forcing Natalie to follow him by retaining her in conversation. Tom Riddle stayed glued to her side, eager to speak with Slughorn as well. 

The rest of the Slytherin group dispersed, taking in the full extent of the festive decorations, mingling with other houses, and warily nibbling at the magicked food.

“I’m not sure yet, Professor,” Natalie replied, allowing Slughorn to hand her a small plate of what she thought was miniature potatoes cooked and garnished to appear as skeletal fingers and a goblet of what smelled like pumpkin juice but looked like blood. “I’m only a fourth year.”

“Ah, but time, m’dear, time moves quicker than you can imagine. It seems like I was just here, sitting in Potions class and having no idea I would end up teaching it to bright young witches and wizards like you and Mr. Riddle. If you do decide to pursue professional Quidditch, a dear friend of mine was the former captain of the Chudley Cannons, he now manages the team and would be delighted to have talent such as yours.”

“Thank you, Professor, I’ll certainly keep it in mind,” Natalie smiled at Slughorn, and took a sip from the goblet of red-colored pumpkin juice to avoid speaking further. She had no idea what she wanted to do with her life after Hogwarts, and always found it annoying when Slughorn asked about it. 

To her relief, Tom jumped in. “I would consider Miss Borealis’s brain wasted should she pursue Quidditch as a career, wouldn’t you, Professor?”

“Ah, there is always that, Tom, m’boy. It’s not often a witch such as Natalie is graced with both talent on the field and in the classroom. Miss Borealis is lucky indeed. But what about you, Tom? Any career interests sparked yet?”

Tom Riddle hesitated, not expecting the conversation to reverse so abruptly back to himself. He ignored the look on Natalie’s face as his remark about her was turned on him. “I am not sure yet, Professor. Like Natalie here, I am only a fourth year. I still have so much to learn about magic and the wizarding world.”

“Ambition like yours, Tom, will get you anywhere,” Slughorn boomed, chuckling to himself as he reached for another goblet of mead off the table they stood beside. “You’ve got a knack for anything you put your mind to, I expect great things from you, Mr. Riddle.” Slughorn wagged a finger in Tom Riddle’s direction, with a fond smile on his face. The fourth year politely returned the smile, continuing to ignore the smirk on Natalie’s face behind Slughorn. 

Slughorn then stepped aside, wrapping an arm around Natalie’s shoulders and pulling her around so she stood beside him and next to Tom Riddle. His wagging finger was now directed at both of them. 

“Now, I know you two are rather fond of working by yourselves, but I expect you both to be Potions partners this year when we move past theories and properties and begin making the more advanced potions next week.”

The two stared at the professor, not having expected him to say such a thing. They blinked rather stupidly for a moment before nodding. 

“Yes, Professor,” they said simultaneously, which seemed to increase Slughorn’s glee. His face grew even redder from all the mead he had consumed and he chuckled to himself. 

“Excellent, I believe you both would make excellent partners — in anything you wished,” he then sent an obvious wink at both of them before picking up another goblet (of wine this time) and waddling off to talk with Abraxas Malfoy.

“What was that about?” Natalie stared after the professor, shaking her head in confusion.

“It seems he would like us to work together in class this year instead of engaging in our usual competitions,” Tom summed up, though bewilderment was swirling around his own dark eyes as well. 

“Wait, those were competitions?” Natalie tilted her head to gaze at him.

Tom stared at her for a long moment and she felt her face heating up under his intense scrutiny. “You are selectively observant,” he finally said with a small chuckle as though this was endearingly amusing to himself only. 

“What does  _ that _ mean?” Natalie narrowed her eyes at him. He was now smirking as though something was wildly funny. 

“Nothing, m’dear,” Tom said, his tone deadly serious but the mocking of their Potions professor was obvious. “Nothing, at all.”

“You better not ruin my potions if he does make us work together,” Natalie shot him a glare before picking up a goblet of butterbeer and spotting Sarah Abbott across the room in the twirling smoke. She swirled her way through the smoke and students to the Ravenclaw.

“Why are you following me?” Natalie realized Tom was on her heels the whole time. 

“Isn’t that what you do when you arrive at a social function with another person as your date?” he asked, assuming his usually overly-polite tone.

“I don’t know. Why would I know social conventions?” Natalie said, only half joking. 

“You seem to traverse social events with such an effortless ease it is near enviable.”

“I usually just make it up as I go along,” she snorted, side-stepping out of the way of a seventh year who had consumed a little too much mead a little too early in the evening. Tom smoothly followed her. “Are you complimenting me, Riddle? I would say you’re actually referring to yourself when it comes to social interactions. Enviable ease, indeed.”

“I merely make factual observations,” Tom replied, snatching up a goblet from one of the trays floating around the room. He took a sip from it and looked at her with eyes as dark as the smoke within the room. His intense gaze made her pause in her tracks. “Where are you going?”

“To see Sarah,” Natalie gestured to where Abbott stood in a forest green dress, beside a dark-haired Ravenclaw boy whose name she did not know.

Tom made no response, but continued following as she trekked through the smoke. He had no idea how Natalie even spotted her Ravenclaw friend on the opposite side of the large room with the ridiculous smoke floating everywhere. 

“Hi, Sarah,” Natalie greeted her friend upon arriving near the two Ravenclaws. 

“Oh, hi, Nat,” Sarah said with a smile, nodding at the boy beside her. “This is Russell Greyson. He’s my date tonight.”

“Oh!” Natalie exclaimed, blinking at the freckle-faced boy for a moment. So this was who Sarah claimed had taken a fancy to her. Now that she had been introduced, she recalled seeing him quite frequently around Hogwarts. The face matched the name now. 

Realizing he had blushed a deep red and seemed to be growing unnerved by her concentrated stare, she took a step back and broke into a smile. “Hi, I’m Natalie.”

“Uh, I know who you are,” Greyson said before returning the smile. 

“Obviously,” Sarah smirked. “Russell, would you mind getting me some of the blood colored pumpkin juice? Claire said it’s on that table near Slughorn.”

“Uh, sure,” Russell mumbled, running a hand through his curly brown hair and squinting around the room. Slughorn was nowhere in sight. “Um, be right back.”

The second he vanished into the smoke, Sarah turned her smirk to Natalie. “I knew you weren’t gonna go for him so I snatched him up.”

“What?” Natalie asked blankly.. 

“He’s the one who fancies you! Remember?” Sarah waved a hand through the air. “And he’s cute. I knew you didn’t like him so I went for him.”

“Okay,” Natalie said, unsure how exactly to respond. She always felt clueless whenever one of her friends mentioned boys or dating. “You think he’s cute?”

“Do you not?” Sarah snorted, but then her glance fell upon Riddle. “But you probably wouldn’t want to say so in front of your boyfriend, right?”

“My what? Oh, no, Riddle and I don’t — we aren’t — we’re Potions partners, if anything, according to Slughorn.”

“Aren’t you both here as each other’s date?” Sarah pointed between them, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

“That’s correct, Abbott. However, we are not romantically involved,” Tom finally decided to speak up, to Natalie’s relief. She hated questions like this. 

“You just both came to a dinner party as the other’s date?” Sarah crossed her arms and gave them a very particular look.

“Yes,” both Natalie and Tom replied simultaneously, which further increased the severity of the look on Sarah’s face. 

“I didn’t want Snyde or Lament begging me to take them as my date,” Natalie said, lifting her goblet to her mouth and flicking her eyes over to Tom.

“And I was in no hurry to be groveled at by the likes of Hornby or Cox,” he added in, looking rather bored with this whole conversation. His facial expression seemed to finally convince Sarah, whom he knew had always been silently afraid of him. 

“I see,” she pursed her lips. “Well, it would have been convenient if you two were, that way I could tell Russell and he would stop pining over you, Natalie.”

“He’s. . . pining over me?” Natalie tried not laugh at how absurd that sounded. She had never spoken to Greyson in her life until tonight. 

“Yes, didn’t you see how red he turned when you came over here and spoke to him? He does look bloody cute when he blushes though, I’ll give him that.”

“Right,” Natalie said, rather offhandedly. She now wanted an excuse to go find some members of her Quidditch team, and had spotted Greyson moving back towards them through the smoke. “Well, Shafiq wanted me to try some odd flavored pumpkin pasty so I gotta go find him. See you around, Sarah.”

“Bye,” Sarah waved at her, returning the polite nod Tom Riddle sent her before he vanished after Natalie into the smoke.

“I may have to retract my statement about you handling social situations with ease,” Tom muttered in her ear as Natalie fluttered through the smoke, looking for any of her teammates.

“I just think it’s bloody odd how Greyson is allegedly in love with me without having ever spoken to me,” Natalie rolled her eyes, frowning through the smoke because it seemed as though her team had vanished. After she considered it, she realized it was probably because half of them were executing the prank they had told her about on the way here. It had involved something about making the suits of armor around the castle come to life and terrify students. 

“Yes, he’s  _ obviously  _ in love with you,” Riddle sneered, sounding slightly irritated.

“Sure, Tom, m’boy,” Natalie instinctively mimicked Slughorn without a second thought, hardly paying attention to the embers in the charcoal eyes of the boy behind her. She paused in the middle of the room and peered about, her sharp gray eyes scanning all around. Until Riddle placed a hand on her shoulder and spun her about to face him, nearly spilling her butterbeer in the process.

“What?” she asked, more annoyed at the interruption to her search for her teammates than the fact that he came very close to splashing butterbeer all down her dress. 

“Can you stop looking for those blithering idiots for five minutes and hold a conversation with me,” his voice was cold and demanding, and it made her stare at him solemnly for a long moment.

“Don’t offend my teammates, Riddle,” she said, affecting just as much ice in her tone. But she began walking towards one of the small tables which lay around the circumference of the room, a rather ruthless spring in her stride. Tom followed her without a word. 

Natalie took a seat at the nearest empty table, which was obscured by the now dense smoke and several large cobwebs hanging around. A floating jack-o-lantern spun in languorous circles a few inches above it, emitting weak streaks of light. 

“What do you want to talk about?” Natalie asked once Tom had taken the seat across from her. She folded her arms on the table and leaned forwards, the light from the jack-o-lantern flickering in her gray eyes. Tom copied her movements, leaning forward so their faces were only a few inches apart. His black eyes bored into hers for a long time.

“Have you ever read anything about the Gaunt family?” he finally asked, his voice slow and deliberate, and she knew this topic was of great importance to him. She was no stranger to being asked for information by Tom Riddle. He did it all the time.

“Yes,” she replied, tilting her head so her loose blonde hair swung to the side. “They’re considered one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.”

“Yes, but what else do you know?” his hands clasped together, nearly touching hers, his grip so tight his knuckles turned white. Natalie glanced down at this and then back up into his eyes.

“That you’re somehow related to them.”

Tom Riddle’s dark eyes widened and he almost threw himself back in his seat. He sat straight up instead, drawing himself to his full height. Natalie did not move, gazing at him with something that looked like understanding and amusement.

“Was it that obvious?” he asked after a moment of silence between them.

“Well, why else would you ask about that particular family?” she questioned with a fluid shrug of her shoulders. “They’re not too relevant anymore, save the pureblood status and being descended from Salazar Slytherin. I’ve heard they’ve lost whatever wealth they had. Can you speak to snakes, then?”

“Yes,” he said, rather stiffly, and she knew he had not mentioned this to anyone else. 

“Why’re you telling me this?” she asked, “not that I don’t care — I’m glad you finally figured out your lineage.”

“As am I,” Tom muttered, letting his shoulders relax. He reminded himself that Natalie Borealis was the one person in Hogwarts who could actually keep a secret. And she had been a loyal ally since day one. “I want to find out as much as I can about them. I didn’t know they had lost their family fortune. The books I’ve read haven’t been updated very recently then.”

“Most likely not. Or if they have, they wouldn’t say anything to reflect a pureblood family in a negative light. I think there’s only one living Gaunt left.”

“Which one?” he leaned forward again, a hungry look in his eyes. 

“Morfin Gaunt, I think,” Natalie said, biting her lower lip as she recalled a conversation she had with Abraxas not too long ago about the remaining pureblood families in England. Halfblood or not, he wanted to make sure his cousin was well-versed in pureblood culture. 

“My middle name is Marvolo,” Tom suddenly flung out this tidbit of information which he had never bothered telling her. “After my grandfather.”

“So Merope would be your mother and her brother Morfin your uncle,” Natalie concluded, and Tom was reminded why he liked to speak to her. She was the only rational witch in the school it seemed. “I’d bet anything that you have the same name as your muggle father. Tom Riddle. That’s about as muggle as Borealis.”

Tom grimaced. “Borealis doesn’t sound quite as dull.”

“Ask a pureblood what it sounds like,” she laughed, the sound cutting through Tom’s brewing cognitive and emotional maelstrom. 

He suddenly diffused, leaning back in his chair and actually giving Natalie a genuine grin. She returned it, albeit, slightly confused. She didn’t know it, but she’d given him a brilliant idea of what to do this coming summer. 


	7. Year IV: A Potions Partnership

“Is Slughorn really going to make us work together?” Natalie complained her annoyance of this fact to Tom Riddle, who was walking alongside her as they headed to Potions class, shared with Hufflepuff this year. 

She abhorred group activities in Potions class, even if it was just one other person. She’d decided this first year when working with Sarah Abbott. The Ravenclaw was good at the theory behind Potions, but terrible at the practice. Natalie’s mother had to owl her daughter a new cauldron every few weeks because of a mistake Abbott would make in class. 

It wasn’t until January of first year did Slughorn finally take pity on Natalie, and assigned Sarah to work with Laurinda Bates instead. Natalie had practically begged him to allow her to work by herself; he was hesitant at first, but within a week it was clear she worked best in Potions class by herself. Tom was no different.

“He seemed rather intent on it last night,” Tom said. “Though I wouldn’t put it past the amount of mead he consumed for him to have entirely forgotten.”

“Ugh,” she groaned, flicking her loose blonde hair over her shoulder and sighing at the potential prospect. She knew Tom was no more pleased about the situation than she was, hence why she bothered whining about it to him. “What if we just sat at the same table and made our own potions and occasionally made a comment about said potions?”

“We already do that,” Tom pointed out with a smirk. “Though I would say ‘comment’ is a bit too kind of a word for what happens in this classroom.”

Natalie paused as they came to a stop just outside the door to the classroom. They were fifteen minutes early, as always. Nobody else had arrived yet, including Professor Slughorn. 

She tilted her head to the side and stared up at Tom Riddle. He had always been a bit taller than her, but now he looked on pace to completely outrun her in the height competition. “I suppose you’re right about that.”

“Can’t imagine myself being wrong about it,” Tom rolled his eyes, reaching forward and tugging the classroom door open. He allowed her to step inside before him with a mocking bow. She snickered under her breath at his antics as she sailed into the classroom.

They claimed their usual spot at the front, left side of the classroom, setting up their cauldrons, scales, and pulling out a blank piece of parchment, quill, and inkpot each. 

“I’m sickened from all this reading about potions ingredients. Thank Merlin we’re actually making potions today,” Natalie sighed, toying around with her quill before pulling out her wand to sharpen the tip of the eagle feather quill. 

Tom Riddle watched her impassively. She could never sit still unless she was hyper-focused on something. And then she could not be swayed away from whatever held her attention. It was unnerving at times. 

“Early, as expected!” Slughorn’s voice boomed across the classroom as he entered from his office side door. The two looked up at the professor and flashed him identical smiles. “I would expect nothing else from my two brightest pupils! I suppose you’re both terribly excited at the prospect of pairing your brilliant minds together, no?”

“Yes, Professor,” Tom said as Natalie’s hand holding her quill dropped in horror at the pleasant intonation of Slughorn’s voice. He reached his own hand over under the table and tugged the quill from her so she would stop her awful jittering with it. It was irritating him to no end; he wanted to speak to her without being distracted by the incessant twirling of an eagle feather quill as she sharpened it. 

Natalie shot him a look when he placed her quill back onto the table before him. Slughorn was now distracted by the entrance of the rest of the class, he had proceeded to begin to pair students up based on ability and favoritism. 

“Can I have my quill back?” Natalie asked, leaning over to take the quill, but Tom moved it out of her reach. She gave him an exasperated look. “Are we. . . children?”

“You certainly fidget like one,” he told her with a sly half-smirk which grew to its full extent as he watched sparks clash within her gray eyes. He loved getting a reaction out of her. 

“You’re younger than me,” she reminded him, adopting a stern voice and turning her hand palm-up on the table. “Give it here.”

“I believe it’s only by a week,” he countered, then raised the quill to further examine it. “I do like this quill. It has excellent coloring, and I’m sure it writes with exceptional fluidity. Perhaps I’ll keep it.”

“You’ll do no such thing, Mr. Riddle,” her gray eyes narrowed; just slivers of thunderclouds peering out at him, but her voice was controlled as it mirrored the posh attitude he adopted. “I believe Professor Slughorn wishes us to work together, not fight amongst ourselves.  _ Perhaps  _ we should grant his wish.”

“Yes,  _ perhaps _ , we should,” he was annoyed she hadn’t boiled over and snapped at him, so he slowly moved his hand which held the quill in her direction — and she snatched it from his grasp so quickly, he was nearly taken aback. At times her Quidditch skills showed themselves in other aspects of life, and it was always a surprise to him. He viewed her on-field self and off-field self as entirely different beings. She was apt to remind him that they were the same. 

“Listen up, class!” Slughorn’s voice billowed around the room, interrupting the staring contest that had begun between the two Slytherins at the front of the room. At his words, the two broke it off, straightened in their seats, and gave the professor their full attention. 

“Today we will be moving on to the practical part of this course. This is our fourth year together so I daresay we are all fairly well acquainted by now. Your partner I’ve assigned you with will last throughout this year. I suggest you all become good friends, if not already so. Now, please open your books to page forty-eight and begin working on the Wit-Sharpening Potion.”

“That’s what you need,” Natalie teased Tom under her breath as the class began flipping through the textbook. “Some wit-sharpening.”

“Don’t mess this potion up, Borealis,” Tom retorted, narrowing his dark eyes at her. She could be silly at times, but always took classes seriously. More seriously than even the most studious Ravenclaw. He wanted her to take this partnership seriously, not view it as an opportunity to taunt him. 

She rolled her eyes and stood up, grabbing her textbook and several small pouches and vials from her bag. The ruthlessness of her sharp actions told him that despite her earlier jab, she was not playing games. “I’ll get the ingredients. Light the fire.”

“Don’t expect that you’ll be telling me what to do this entire year,” Tom reminded her, and the pair was officially no longer joking around. The competition and desire for great achievements had been kindled.

“I wouldn’t expect that on your end either,” she said coldly, before gliding around the tables of the classroom to the ingredients cupboard. She was the first one there, the rest of the class still ruffling through the textbook and mumbling the list of ingredients outloud; and she was back at the table with Tom by the time a crowd of students grew around the cupboard. 

“I’ll deal with the scarab beetle, you deal with the ginger root and armadillo bile?” she phrased it like a question, but Tom knew she would only grow unbearable if he suggested anything else. This arrangement was pleasing to him as well, so he found no reason to protest. 

They worked in silence for several minutes. Grinding, chopping, mixing, remixing, checking the textbook instructions, occasionally asking Professor Slughorn a question about the instructions. He would appear quite frequently at their table, take a peek into their cauldron, or to simply watch them work in silent tandem. Then he would chuckle to himself and move off with merriment in his step. 

“We have to add more ginger root,” Natalie said, staring down at the purple potion that was now simmering in their cauldron. 

“It’s supposed to be a dark orange color,” Tom stated, leaning over so his head was next to hers as he gazed down at the potion. It was really a simple potion. Slughorn was testing them, to weed out the incompetent within the class. 

Tom Riddle was somehow not surprised that working with Natalie had not aggravated him past the point of rationality. It was rather enjoyable, in fact, like all their interactions. She was competent and knew what she was doing. And she knew that he was the same and expected him to meet her high expectations for performance. He had no trouble doing this, because their expectations were, like always, on the same level. Her calm demeanor seemed to suggest she thought this as well. 

“Let’s add two more pieces,” she suggested, pulling back to chop up more of the root. “But add them one at a time.”

“We’re much farther ahead than everyone else in brewing this,” Tom realized, glancing around the classroom for the first time to take note of their peers’ activities.

“What?” Natalie copied his actions, the knife in her hand freezing above the bulbous ginger root. “What has everyone been doing all this time?”

“I haven’t a single idea,” Tom shrugged, this now not being of great concern to him after having noticed it. “Are you going to finish cutting that root?”

“Yeah,” Natalie muttered, bringing the knife down upon the root. Tom scooped up the two pieces she had cut, and dropped one into the cauldron. It sizzled upon contact, and continued to do so when Natalie picked up the ladle and began stirring. 

“Add the next one,” she said, watching as the potion slowly faded away from the purple spectrum and began turning to orange. “That should be enough.”

Tom did so, and she kept stirring until the potion finally turned the desired dark orange. Then she removed the ladle and the two stared down at their potion for a moment. 

“That wasn’t so bad,” Natalie observed, though both knew she was directly referring to herself and Tom working together in class. “You weren’t as bossy as I thought you’d be.”

“And you were precisely as bossy as I thought you’d be,” Tom deadpanned, making her roll her eyes as the two turned to cleaning up their unused supplies. 

“Done already?” Slughorn noticed their state of completion and waddled over to their table. “Don’t know what I expected, pairing you two together, other than unparalleled excellence. I hope you found it quite as delightful as I did.”

Tom inclined his head so that his signature half-smirk went unseen by Slughorn, but nothing less than seen by Natalie. He wasn’t sure what exactly it was about her that made him want to taunt and enrage her so much. Maybe it was how irritated it made her. Or the fact that she would taunt him right back without a second thought. And he allowed her to do so. But the lightning that would jump about within her storm-gray eyes was always worth watching. 

“Yes, Professor, I did find it to be  _ quite  _ delightful.”


	8. Year IV: The Three Broomsticks

“No, I won’t do it.”

“C’mon, Nat! Please!” 

“No, Lizzie, you’re ridiculous.” Elizabeth Putnam was trying, in vain, to convince Natalie Borealis to arrange a meetup between her and Giles Morrison, a Chaser on the Slytherin Quidditch team. 

Putnam, Sarah Abbott, and Claire Griggs had asked Natalie to accompany them to Hogsmeade on the first chilly Hogsmeade weekend since returning from Christmas break. Currently, the four sat at a booth in the Three Broomsticks, savoring hot butterbeers and watching Hogwarts students tramp in and out of the pub. 

“Didn’t you just fancy Thorpe?” Natalie asked, warming her hands on a mug of butterbeer. Elizabeth had practically ambushed Natalie with her newest obsession with her teammate. 

“That was months ago! Months!” Elizabeth exclaimed, throwing her Ravenclaw scarf over her neck for a dramatic flare. “Thorpe may be fit, but he’s  _ boring.  _ All he does is study, and he got kicked off the Quidditch team!”

“Yeah, because he wasn’t coming to practice,” Sarah snorted as though this was obvious. Natalie held a hand up and the two Quidditch players high-fived.

“But Morrison, now there’s a character,” Elizabeth gushed. “He has that golden blonde hair, and those dreamy blue eyes. . . Merlin, and did you see him at the last game?”

“Yeah, I was there,” Natalie snickered. “We beat Ravenclaw pretty bad. Sorry, not sorry, Sarah.”

Sarah shrugged, “our captain is a blithering idiot. If Greyson was captain, or even myself, things would have been different.”

“Enough of that, let’s talk about Giles,” Elizabeth reclaimed the spotlight with a twirl of her thick dark hair. “He scored plenty of goals that game. There was one in particular, I remember, when he nearly fell off his broom. He must be so strong, to not have fallen. . . .”

“Yeah, Morrison is pretty strong,” Natalie said, voice laced with an underlying sarcasm that none of the Ravenclaws picked up on. And none of them, save her, from her outside seat at the booth which faced the door, were aware that Giles Morrison, accompanied by Jonathan Shaw and Reynard Shafiq had just entered the pub. 

“I knew it,” Elizabeth sighed, staring down into her butterbeer with a look of intense longing. “Do you think he knows who I am?”

“I’ll ask — Oi! Giles!” Natalie nearly shouted across the pub where her teammates had taken a seat, to Elizabeth’s horror, Sarah’s amusement, and Claire’s excitement. “Putnam here wants to know if you know who she is?”

“Who?” Giles shouted back, while Shaw had broken into a smirk and Shafiq noticed Natalie’s presence and was gesturing at her to join them. 

“Elizabeth Putnam!” Natalie yelled, pointing at her friend on the other side of the booth. Putnam’s olive complexion was now beet red as she awkwardly waved across the pub that had fallen deadly silent. 

“Oh, yeah, I know who she is,” Morrison nodded, returning the wave Putnam had sent his way.

“There’s your answer,” Natalie grinned at the Ravenclaw, who had sweat beading around her forehead despite the cold temperature outside.

“Oh my Merlin, Nat, that wasn’t what I wanted!” Elizabeth leaned in to furiously whisper. “Everyone heard that!”

“Everyone already knows you’re obsessed with Morrison,” Griggs pointed out, earning herself a glare from Putnam.

“That was one of the funniest things Nat has ever done,” Sarah finally broke her silence, erupting into laughter that had her nearly banging a hand against the table. “That was bloody amazing!”

“No it wasn’t!” Elizabeth protested, but even Claire had descended into giggles. It seemed like the rest of the pub had found it just as humorous. 

“Oi, princess, come sit with us!” Reynard Shafiq then bellowed across the pub, attracting everyone’s attention once again. 

“That’s my cue,” Natalie laughed, taking her mug of butterbeer and slipping out of the booth. “My captain calls. I’ll see you three around.”

“What was that about?” Morrison asked as she slid into the seat beside Shafiq and across from Shaw. 

“Oh, you’re the latest apple of Putnam’s eye,” Natalie smirked. “Do what you please with that information.”

“I thought she was all over Thorpe?” Shaw asked as a waiter placed butterbeer on the table for the three boys, and Natalie requested a refill. 

“That was before Christmas. She went home, got bored, came back and needed a new interest,” Natalie shook her head. “I don’t know how she does it.”

“Well, you looked like you needed saving, and we came here to talk about you, specifically, so you may as well join,” Shafiq said after taking a heavy swig of butterbeer.

“Wait. . . why are you talking about me?” Natalie stared at them, flashing the waiter a smile when he returned with a refill of her own butterbeer. 

“Well, you know I graduate this year,” Reynard said with a slight grin. “Someone’s gotta wear this badge next year.” He tapped a finger on the silver Quidditch captain badge pinned on the outside of his cloak with immense pride. 

“Okay, but why are you talking about me-”

“Shafiq wants you to be captain next year, you git,” Morrison cut in, rolling his eyes as sudden realization dawned upon Natalie’s face.

“Oh — oh!” she gasped in astonishment, she hadn’t imagined a Slytherin team without Crockett or Shafiq as captain. She hadn’t really thought about who would be captain once Shafiq graduated, and hadn’t considered herself old enough for the role. “But I’ll only be a fifth year next year-”

“Doesn’t matter,” Shaw said, “Crockett was captain as a fourth year. The team is pretty unanimous about this too.”

“What do you mean?” she stared around at them all, not daring to make assumptions.

“We all want you as our captain next year,” Morrison slowly explained to her, “do you want to be captain?”

“I- I’d love to be captain,” Natalie admitted, eyes wide at the prospect. “But doesn’t Slughorn get to pick?”

“Obviously, but if I told old Sluggy to make you captain, he would do just that,” Shafiq grinned, slamming his butterbeer tankard onto the table with a solid thunk, he licked the foam off his lips and shot Natalie a grin. “So you would accept the title?”

“Of course I would!” she cried, practically jumping up and down in her seat, “I mean, that is, if neither of you want it?” she grew solemn for a moment, looking between Morrison and Shaw, the two players on the team, save Abraxas, who would be her elder after Shafiq graduated. 

“You deserve it, princess,” Morrison grinned at her and Shaw raised his tankard in her direction. 

“Just please don’t run us into the ground, we need sleep, too,” Jonathan Shaw pleaded, causing Shafiq to laugh into his butterbeer and nearly spit it out. 

“Actually, feel free to do just that,” Reynard sniggered, eyeing Shaw with mischief. “We need a no-nonsense leader once I’m gone. You can keep these buffoons in line.”

“Oi, who’re you calling buffoons, Shafiq?” a voice interrupted their banter and all turned to see Abraxas Malfoy, with a shy Melania Crouch behind him. The two were cherry-faced and bright-eyed, having just come in the pub from brisk January wind. 

“Shaw. Not Morrison. But definitely Lestrange, Dawson, and Rosier,” Shafiq told him, having no regard for Shaw’s faked offense taken at this statement. “Fancy seeing you, Malfoy. We were just telling the princess here that we want her to be captain once I graduate this year.” 

“Oh, you finally told her,” Abraxas grinned at Natalie, whose jaw dropped.

“What do you mean,  _ finally _ ?”

“We’ve known about this for months, now. Actually, I think we all decided it without telling you at the end of last season,” Shafiq said, looking delighted by the astonishment on her face. “It can’t be that much of a surprise.”

“I just never imagined the team without Crockett, and then once he was gone, without you,” she admitted, a bit sheepishly but entirely truthfully.

Reynard Shafiq touched his hand to his heart and looked deeply emotionally affected. Shaw and Morrison both “aw”ed very loudly, making Abraxas roll his eyes and a quiet Melania giggle. “I’m touched, princess. That was the greatest compliment you could ever give me, both as a player and a captain.”

“Didn’t know you had a soft side, Nat,” Shaw smirked, “can you show it to us instead of making us fly laps when you’re captain?”

“Don’t you dare!” Shafiq nearly yelped, giving Shaw a dirty look. “She’s going to be a great captain and it’s because of how seriously she takes the sport. I won’t have you sabotaging that.”

“Calm down,” Shaw held his hands up in defeat. “I’m only joking. If anyone, it’s Lestrange and Dawson you ought to be worrying about.”

“Oh, I know. But they’ll all be fifth years by then,” Shafiq ran a hand through his bright red hair. “OWLs will make them stop goofing around, hopefully.”

“They’ll still act up,” Abraxas snorted, shaking his head, though fondness was shining in all of their eyes for their prankster teammates. “But somehow get enough O’s on their OWLs.”

“Well, we don’t want to intrude on your date with Crouch here,” Shafiq said, a slight teasing note to his voice. Both Abraxas and Melania blushed under the smiles which sprung up around the table at them. 

“It’s uh, not a date,” Abraxas muttered weakly. Melania looked mortified under the gazes of most of the members of the Quidditch team. 

“Merlin, just say it’s date, Malfoy,” Shaw groaned, slapping a hand to his forehead. “It’s obvious you both like each other enough to want it to be a date.”

“Courting a lady is a complex practice in the magical world,” Abraxas said stiffly, narrowing his gray eyes at Shaw, who had quickly grown serious. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“C’mon, Malfoy, cool it with the pureblood bullshit,” Morrison spoke up, his level-headed demeanor taking charge of the situation, which had quickly grown tense between everyone as blood status was mentioned. “We’re all friends, Slytherins, and teammates here.”

There was a moment of silence before Abraxas’ shoulders relaxed and his lips pressed together. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed and glanced at Jonathan Shaw. “I didn’t mean any offense. I wouldn’t like to impose on or disrespect Melania by assuming our trip to Hogsmeade was a date. It is up to her to decide that.” 

“It’s alright Abraxas,” the quiet Melania Crouch spoke up, drawing all eyes to her. “We can call this a date. I’d like it to be one, if you do too.”

Abraxas turned a deep red at this, especially because of the smirks and grins which appeared on the faces of his teammates. “Yes. . . I would love to call it that.”

“Go get some butterbeer, kids,” Shafiq waved the two of them off before Shaw could erupt into another round of “aw”s. And they slipped away into the bustling pub to find a booth for themselves.


	9. Year IV: End of More Than Another Year

“You should come visit again this summer,” Abraxas Malfoy stood in the door of Natalie Borealis’ compartment on the Hogwarts Express. Students were slowly trickling in from the castle; she had arrived nearly an hour early to ensure she obtained her favorite compartment near the end of the train. She sat reading today’s Daily Prophet, awaiting the appearance of whichever of her friends arrived first. “I promise Mother won’t be as rude.”

“I will,” she said, putting the paper aside and grinning at him. “I didn’t think she was as rude to me as you were when I first arrived at Hogwarts.”

Abraxas rolled his eyes, an annoyed smile on his face. “I knew I was onto something back then, believing you were an irritating brat.”

“And I knew you were an uptight prat,” she shot back, then gestured to the empty compartment around her. “Have you come to sit with me?”

“Unfortunately, no. Melania has saved a compartment for us at the front of the train. I’m meeting her there.”

“Ah, yes, go ahead, then. Keep in touch this summer, Malfoy,” she teased.

“You too, Borealis,” he smirked before vanishing out the door and down the train. 

It wasn’t long after that did a dull-eyed Tom Riddle appear in the door of her compartment. He entered without saying a word, taking the seat opposite of her, as he did every year. 

She smiled at him in grim acknowledgement, knowing this was his least favorite part of the school year. 

He simply nodded back at her, his dark eyes focusing on the platform outside the window, where the castle was barely visible through the gray fog which made the June morning unseasonably chilly.

“I got you something,” Natalie announced in a calm voice, pointing to the pile of books that had been lying on the seat beside her since she had claimed the compartment. 

Tom’s eyes slowly moved to meet hers, confusion glimpsed within them for a moment before they landed on a stack of heavy books she then held out to him. 

The corners of his lips twitched up in a slight smirk. This was a tradition for them; every year on the train back to King’s Cross, Natalie would dump upon him several thick books to read over the summer. He had never told her how horrid living at the orphanage over the summer was, but she had intuited it from his sullen demeanor at the end of the school year, and his avoidance of speaking about his life outside of Hogwarts. Every year, having nothing else to do but sit in his room and entertain himself in some fashion, (that is, when he was not journeying to Diagon Alley to stroll in and out of the shops and think about what he wanted his future to look like) he would finish the pile within the first week of arriving back at the muggle orphanage. So Natalie always left a little scrap of parchment at the end of each book, with several recommendations of muggle books which she insisted were well worth it. Boredom festering and ripe with embarrassment, he would walk to the nearest muggle library, and had thus discovered Friedrich Nietzsche, Niccolo Machiavelli, Marcus Tullius Cicero, and many others whom he was convinced their magical blood had been lost to history. 

“I hope you’ve made a good selection this year,” he hummed to himself, taking the books from her and shuffling through them quickly, skimming the titles and nodding to himself. 

“I always make a good selection,” she said, not a trace of humor in her voice — and Tom agreed, for the titles all looked absolutely fascinating. 

  
  


Natalie Borealis knew something was wrong the moment she spotted her mother’s thinning blonde hair and red-rimmed eyes on the platform as the Hogwarts Express chugged into the station. 

But she knew not to ask. Not until her mother hugged her and they disapparated off to their suburban home. It was a luxuriously furnished house which her father had purchased shortly after retiring from British professional football, in an upscale neighborhood where each property had plenty of acres of land between them. 

“Go put your things away, Natalie,” her mother whispered, ignoring the questioning look her daughter gave her when they passed through the front door and into the expansive entrance hall. “I’ll come up to tell you when dinner is ready.”

Unwilling to begin an argument, and sensing the atmosphere of foreboding tension that entrenched itself within their usually warm and loving home, Natalie obeyed. 

She dragged her trunk up the curved oak stairs, cursing the Ministry, Hogwarts, and whoever it was who had decided students could not use magic outside of school. How were they supposed to practice and refine their skills if they spent over two months not using magic at all?

Her room was exactly as she remembered leaving it on September first. The large bed, enough to fit three of herself, with sparkling silver covers and emerald green pillows. Matching green curtains covered a large bay window, a ledge bench seat with silver pillows in front of it. A bookshelf underneath this seat, full of all the books on spells, potions, and creatures she collected. The shelf didn’t fit all her books in it. She could have had her mother magically expand it, but instead, Natalie liked to stack the excess books up around the room. It made her feel — literally — surrounded by knowledge.

Natalie dropped her trunk in front of her large dresser, not bothering to unpack her clothes into her magically expanded wardrobe. Instead she found herself staring at her reflection in the mirror hanging on the back of the door which led to the connected bathroom. 

Huge gray eyes gazed back, a glimpse of fear swimming in their depths. Her blonde hair was loose, it framed the planes and angles of her face like a white curtain until she reached up and began braiding it back. 

She was halfway done when loud voices floated up the stairs and through her open doorway. Natalie dropped the braid, allowing it to unravel as she snuck out of her room and into the hallway, trying to hear what was being said. 

It was her father speaking, and he seemed to be passionately yelling about something. She quickly determine he was yelling at her mother. 

About her. A shiver ran through her at this realization. 

“-won’t be sending her back to that bloody school!” Natalie silently trod down the hall and then the stairs, pausing on the last few steps to eavesdrop on the voices carrying from the kitchen.

“I don’t plan on losing another member of my family to your. . . your magic world!”

“Theo, it wasn’t magic-”

“Then it was the absence of magic! I know what you can do, Theia, but you refused! And look what happened!”

“You know I couldn’t save them! It would have risked exposing our world!”

“Maybe your world shouldn’t be hidden then! Maybe it should be in the open, that way you can use your magic for something useful!”

“I can’t make that decision-”

“Well, maybe someone should! Until then, I refuse to send Natalie back to Hogwarts!”

“You can’t do that, Theo, she belongs there. She belongs in my world. . . .”

“She’s my daughter too! I won’t be sending her!”

Natalie had heard enough. Spinning on heel, she bounded up the stairs two at a time, making sure her footsteps went unheard. 


	10. Year V: Troubled Times

It was the worst summer of Natalie Borealis’s life. She took to locking herself up in her room and burying herself in a book, or dashing out to the fields around the house and engaging in what turned into hours-long Quidditch workouts to escape the circle of hell her family had descended to. It took a few weeks to admit to herself that that is precisely what had happened with her once happy and loving little family. 

Theodore and Theia’s feuds rapidly turned violent over the course of the summer. Natalie finally learned that just a few days prior to her return from Hogwarts, her Uncle Matthew, her father’s brother, along with his wife, Angelina, and their two young sons, had been crushed to death during a German bombing raid in London. Her father placed the blame on her mother, as they had been in London en route to visit Matthew and Angelina at the time and he had begged Theia to use magic to rescue his brother and family from the debris of their home. Theia refused to use magic so openly in the muggle world. Theodore Borealis could not forgive his wife for this. 

As a result, Natalie’s muggle father developed a hatred towards the wizarding world which he deemed to be righteous and justified due to the death of his brother, sister-in-law, and nephews. 

He burned each copy of the Daily Prophet as soon as it arrived, and would chuck his countless black and white soccer balls at the owls that delivered the Daily Prophet. Finally, Theia cancelled their subscription. 

He refused to drink the potions Theia had always made him to soothe his painful arthritis, and her collection of potions ingredients had been hidden in Natalie’s wardrobe. Which Natalie hadn’t known until she opened it and discovered vials of dragon’s blood, pouches of dried baneberries, and various other ingredients tucked around her collection of muggle clothing. 

Natalie hadn’t mentioned it to her mother, and her mother did the same. In fact, her mother never addressed the fact that their family was tearing itself apart. Theia Borealis seemed to be pretending everything was as it had always been, which could not be further from the truth. 

Every night they would sit down for dinner as a family, pretending to maintain a semblance of normalcy, until Theodore grew angry and initiated an argument with Theia. Natalie would vanish as soon as this happened, fleeing upstairs or outside when voices grew loud, objects thrown, and hands turned abusive. 

Natalie was terrified. She knew this (very one-sided) typhoon of emotions and violence between her parents could not continue for long, one of her parents would snap, or she herself would. 

Her father had told her repeatedly that he would not be sending her back to Hogwarts, and he seemed determined to keep his word. The prospect of not returning to Hogwarts was horrifying — but Natalie dared not argue about it with her father, else his violence turn upon her. 

Her mother was of little help with anything; every time her daughter would attempt to discuss the situation with her, Theia would smile and excuse her father’s behavior as being due to his emotions or personality, claiming that she loved him unconditionally despite his flaws. Natalie found this to be a stark contrast from the strong ideals her mother had impressed upon her since she was a little girl. She could not begin to comprehend how Theia submitting herself to her husband’s physical, verbal, and emotional abuse was considered unconditional love. 

She had the feeling her mother simply did not want to admit her relationship with her husband had morphed into a raging monster that was destroying them all. 

It was mid-July, and Natalie was sneaking in the back door of the house after a particularly long Quidditch workout. Sweaty and still panting as she pulled the door open, praying it wouldn’t creak. It was nearing midnight, and she hoped her father’s temper had subsided from hours ago when he began rampaging through the house and flinging empty bottles against furniture. But the moment she stepped in through the door, she knew it had not. 

“-DIDN’T GIVE UP MAGIC WHEN WE MARRIED, BUT YOU SHOULD HAVE IF YOU WEREN’T GOING TO USE IT WHEN IT MATTERED!”

“Theodore, please stop this! It’s in the past! I’m sorry!”

“YOU’RE NOT, I CAN SEE IT IN YOUR EYES! YOUR FAMILY HAS ALWAYS HATED US BECAUSE WE DON’T HAVE MAGIC! YOU’RE JUST LIKE THEM!”

“I love you! I married you! I left my family because I love you!”

“YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE WILLING TO DIE FOR THE ONES YOU LOVE! I LOVED MY BROTHER, I WOULD HAVE DIED FOR MY BROTHER! BUT YOU COULDN’T EVEN RAISE YOUR  _ STICK!” _

There was a sharp sound of breaking glass and a cry of pain from Theia. Natalie’s breath vanished in her throat as she stood, frozen, in the back hallway while her parents fought in the kitchen. Her heart pounding so fast it felt as if it wasn’t pumping at all. 

Once again, she was struck with the sudden horror that her family, her perfect, loving family, was spiraling into disaster. It couldn’t be real — could it? Hopefully, she would wake up in her dormitory at Hogwarts any minute now, and pack to leave for a blissful, relaxing summer vacation. 

“YOU WON’T EVEN USE MAGIC TO DEFEND YOURSELF! WHAT IS THE POINT OF HAVING MAGIC IF YOU DON’T USE IT!?”

“I won’t raise my wand against the ones I love, Theodore!”

“AND YOU WOULDN’T USE IT TO PROTECT THEM, EITHER!”

More breaking glass, and the muffled sounds of a struggle. A scream of unexpected terror pierced the air before it was cut off with a choked wheezing noise. It sliced through Natalie’s mind like a powerful curse, unfreezing her trembling limbs and sending her sprinting through the hall and bursting into the kitchen. 

There, she just spotted her mother’s blonde head, smeared with gruesome scarlet blood, drop behind the island counter in the middle of the kitchen, out of sight, while Theodore Borealis stood above her, a brutal glare deforming his face and streaks of blood on his hands.

“GO TO YOUR ROOM!” her father bellowed when he noticed her presence. He snatched up the nearest beer bottle and sent it flying her way. His voice and the breaking of glass against the doorframe beside Natalie seemed to split the very air itself. She ducked under the sudden assault of broken glass; it rained down upon her like a dangerous hailstorm of alcohol, blood, and fury. 

She nearly fell over herself scrambling out of the kitchen, up the stairs and into her bedroom, shards of glass falling from her now blood-streaked braid. She skidded to a stop in her room and flung herself at the door, locking it and propping the trunk she had never unpacked in front of it as a barrier.

For a long moment she was aware of nothing but the silence in the house, her gasping breathing, and the small drops of blood and beer falling from her hair. 

Then a horrible feeling of dread crept up on her. She snatched her wand from the armguard it was tucked into while she trained outside, and readied herself. Her heart pumping into overdrive as she stood before the fortified door to her bedroom and wondered if the man she thought was her father would come through it. 


	11. Year V: The Catalyst

Natalie did not sleep the entire night. After standing guard for a while in front of the door, she settled on the cushioned bench against the window, her wand clutched tightly in her hand. 

Outside, the summer air was balmy, with a tropical breeze. The moon nearly full, it shone down through the cloudless night into her window, caressing the hardwood floor of her room with a gentle touch — but Natalie did not have time for the soft gaze of the moon. 

Different, violent scenarios were playing out in her head, all revolving around her father storming through the door and taking his anger out on her. She was locked in a furious debate with herself over whether using magic against her father in self-defense was worth getting expelled from Hogwarts. She never thought she would see the day; it felt like a nightmare from which she desperately wanted to wake up — but couldn’t. 

It came as both a relief and a surprise when the sun finally peeked through her curtains, announcing the entrance of a new day. The house had been quiet all night. Too quiet.

Natalie waited another hour before rising from her steadfast spot. Her joints popping and creaking as she finally stretched them; her muscles had been tense the whole night, prepared for anything. 

She crossed the room and removed her trunk from in front of the door, then unlocked and slowly opened it. The hall was dark, but she could spot the light from the kitchen reflecting in the mirror on the wall halfway down the stairs. 

Natalie inhaled deeply for a moment, allowing it to release the tension within her. With a surge of bravery, she entered the hall and crept down the stairs, making no noise as she went. But her breathing quickly grew ragged and her heartbeat began thundering furiously as she approached the kitchen. Something was wrong: she had an instinctive feeling about it. She wasn’t sure what, exactly, but there was a voice whispering in the back of her mind that something was fundamentally  _ wrong _ . 

The kitchen door was open, so she peeked in and spied her father sitting calmly at the table. A muggle newspaper before him, he sipped a freshly brewed cup of coffee as though it was just another morning in his retired professional football player life. The radio tittered news about the ongoing war with Germany, and the sun shone in through the large windows, dancing in smooth patterns on the floor. It was completely and utterly surreal. 

Before she stepped in, Natalie drew in another deep breath — and froze. The kitchen reeked of strong muggle cleaning products. The sterile, chemical odor was so strong, she almost choked on her next breath. She pinched her nose and focused on breathing through her mouth before finally entering the kitchen, trying to appear as calm and unassuming as possible. As if there wasn’t a devil screaming a warning in her head. Something was  _ wrong.  _

“D-Dad?” she murmured, meeting her father’s dark blue eyes. The kindling which lay within their turbulent depths was identical to her own. Each waiting for something to spark their tempestuous passions. His, however, were a blazing inferno, content with the destruction they had wrought. Hers were only warm embers, not yet fanned to life. 

“Morning, Natalie,” her father greeted her, as though last night or the past month had not happened. It made her nauseous. How could he sit there like that, when he was intent on ensuring she never returned to the magical world? When he had unleashed his furious tornado of emotions on her mother?

“Um. . . where’s mom?” she couldn’t help it, she knew it would ignite his temper but the words were blurted out before she could reconsider speaking them aloud.

“That’s not your concern!” He snapped at her, dropping his mug of coffee onto the table with a little too much force. Natalie flinched backwards at this, muscles taut at the sudden display of aggression. Something was wrong, and she had a nagging feeling she knew exactly what it was. “I’ve made some calls, it’s not too late to enroll you in the local school for this coming year.”

The teenager’s teeth nervously dug into the soft skin of her lower lip as she stared at the man whom she had been so fond of throughout her life. He had taught her how to kick a soccer ball and helped her hang ornaments on the Christmas tree. He had both given and encouraged the athleticism which was an integral part of her life. He had raised her to follow her passions and dreams. 

But now he had become warped and distorted, ruled by his destructive emotions. When she looked at him, she saw a silly muggle, crazed by his hatred of magic and trying to pin the blame for his brother’s death on the wizarding world that he envied not being a true part of. With her mother as the main scapegoat. This was not her father. This was a monster, blinded by irrationality and apparently suffering no remorse for what she now knew he had done. She supposed he had extracted a deplorable sense of vengeance and justice from his actions. But that didn’t make it any less sickening. 

“She’s dead isn’t she?” Natalie wasn’t sure what possessed her to utter this accusation, maybe it was the shrieking demon in her head as her own emotions crashed about within her, swirling into a catastrophic hurricane that was bound to consume her. This was what was inherently wrong. This was what the voice in her head screamed. This was what the man sitting before her had done. “You. . . you killed her. . . .”

“DON’T YOU DARE TURN THIS ON ME!” the mug of coffee was sent flying away with a swipe of his hand. It hit the floor with a sharp crash and shattered to pieces, sending caramel colored liquid and porcelain all across the kitchen tiles. “DON’T YOU DARE-” Natalie never heard what he said next. She turned tail and fled out of the kitchen, down the hall, and out the back door into the dew-covered field behind the house. 

* * *

Blonde hair streaked with blood. Raised voices. Breaking glass. An agonized scream. A choked breath. 

“No. No, don’t think about it,” Natalie Borealis huffed to herself as she panted out her exertion. She was miles from her family home. She had sprinted out into the field behind the house and settled into a punishing jog after her father turned on her for calling out his crime. Her muscles were shrieking their soreness at her, but the voices in her head were louder. The spinning cyclone of emotions had to be expressed and repressed somehow. Physical activity would have to do. Thinking about it was painful. She couldn’t handle it. How could this have happened? 

Her mother was dead. Killed; asphyxiated to death, by her own husband. 

“No, no, don’t think-”

Her father; the loving, adoring man who had raised her with nothing but compassion and understanding. Who had loved her mother unconditionally. Who her mother loved unconditionally.

“Stop, don’t think about it-”

Her mother was shunned by her family because she had married a muggle. A muggle who had ended up murdering her. 

“Don’t-”

They had loved each other, had they not? Loved her, their own daughter?

“Just run!”

Her mother was dead. Dead, at the hands of her father. 

“Stop!”


	12. Year V: Consequences

Natalie Borealis had a strong moral compass. But like her father, it was subject to her fierce passions and emotions. Unlike her father, however, she possessed the resources and powers the wizarding world conferred upon her. Hence how she found herself, four days later, slipping a particular potion into one of her father’s beer bottles. One that would enact the revenge of the entire Malfoy family for the murder of Theia at the hands of her muggle husband. 

Though her fingers quivered as she poured the small vial of blood-red liquid into the bottle, she had no deterring second-thoughts about her actions. Theia had left all her potions ingredients in Natalie’s room. It was too easy to whip something up. It was as if it was meant to happen. 

It had to be done. Her reasoning was ringing in its self-righteousness. It had to be done. Her actions were justified, they upheld the necessary punitive action for Theodore Borealis’ crime: the murder of Theia Malfoy. It had to be done. An eye for an eye, a life for a life. It had to be done. The man who killed her mother was not her father. It had to be done. He was deranged, maniacal, beyond all help. It had to be done. Her father had died months ago, well before he began abusing Theia Malfoy. It had to be done. Natalie felt little remorse. It had to be done. This was deserved. It had to be done. This was justice. It had to be done.

Natalie avoided him for the first few days before she planted the tainted bottle in the fancy new muggle refrigerator Theodore had recently bought. She had barely even been in the house, taking instead to roaming through the fields and woods around the property. She distracted herself with ever-intensifying Quidditch workouts to avoid thinking of what had happened to her family. When her muscles were strained and her body pushing itself to its physical limits, the turbulent voices in her mind were silenced, and with them, all her troubles and misfortunes.

When the time came for her plan to be enacted, it all went so smoothly, Natalie was convinced it was supposed to have happened this way. 

As she listened from the hall, trembling slightly, Theodore cracked open a bottle and took a long swig. It wasn’t long before he began heaving and gasping for breath and the bottle went crashing to the floor, where it shattered like so many others. But it would be the last one to break in that kitchen. His daughter had taken care of that.

Natalie stepped into the room as Theodore Borealis took his last breath before he expired in the same spot where he had choked his wife to death. The last thing he saw was his daughter’s gray eyes, looking down at him with shame and disgust.

* * *

News spreads fast, particularly the news that a muggle man murdered his wife, who was a member of a noble pureblood line. Blood traitor or not, the wizarding world was up in arms at the murder of Theia Borealis, née Malfoy, and no one seemed to bother looking into the mystery of how Theodore Borealis had also died. It was swept aside as fate well deserved. 

Theia’s death heightened the strained relations between the wizarding and muggle communities. The muggle community wrote the deaths off as a case of substance induced murder-suicide. Of course, they wouldn’t have the tools to identify baneberry potion. In the wizarding world, Theia’s murder was pointed to as a typical case of how muggles treated those with magic, and became entrenched in wizarding law and lore as a leading argument to pass more anti-muggle measures. 

The Malfoy family itself had become a roaring beast at the death of one of their own. For the story now became that Theia Malfoy had been duped and tricked into marrying a famous muggle all those years ago. Natalie was bombarded with letters from Abraxas and his parents, her aunt and uncle. She ignored them all, returning only one succinct response stating that she wished to be left alone in her mourning. They respected her wishes. But their blood-hatred was exponentially magnified as a result of Theia’s death. 

And it was only a few hours after Theodore dropped to the floor and Natalie allowed the word to spread of her mother’s death, that Theia’s own mother, Natalie’s grandmother, a stern elderly woman with white hair and disciplined blue eyes apparated on the doorstep of the former Borealis family home and announced she would take Natalie in, halfblood or not. The fact that her grandmother, after seeing her for the first time, wept tears of amazement because Natalie looked “just like Theia in her youth” certainly washed away any lingering troubles concerning her blood status. 

Thus, a few hours after taking care of Theodore Borealis, Natalie found herself in the luxurious mansion of her widowed grandmother, Domitia Malfoy, whose late husband, Cassius Malfoy, had established a potions ingredients distributing company decades ago. (It was clear that his strong-willed wife had played an essential role in this.) The company had become so successful he had bought out his competition and conglomerated them all into a powerful monopoly which was now the sole distributor of potions ingredients to the entire United Kingdom and parts of mainland Europe. With his death several years ago, the company was headed by Domitia, who had a knack for entrepreneurial endeavors which led her to immense profits. 

Natalie was no stranger to affluence. Her father had been a millionaire in muggle terms, despite having retired a few years ago, he had maintained his wealth through commercial contracts and team affiliations. What was different now, however, was that she found herself being treated like a pampered, spoiled pureblood princess. After fifteen years of ignoring her, Domitia attempted to make up for the lost time. Natalie was showered with silk robes and fine jewelry; then once Domitia discovered her interests, her granddaughter was gifted with the finest broomstick in the market, along with an assortment of other Quidditch equipment, including her very own set of Quidditch balls and bats locked in a fancy wooden chess with her initials engraved upon it. The piles of books in the room Natalie had been given also increased daily; all of this coming as a welcome distraction. 

Domitia’s newfound adoration of her granddaughter multiplied tenfold when her Hogwarts letter for the new year arrived. The thick parchment was weighted with two pieces of metal; a silver “P” badge and a silver “C” badge, both entwined with a snake, proclaiming her as one of Slytherin’s newest prefects and the house’s next Quidditch captain. 

But Natalie refused to let herself get caught up with the changes taking place in her life. Her mind was unable to comprehend and accept what had happened to her family, so she refused to allow herself to think about it. 

She ignored any and all letters her friends wrote to her. She didn’t even bother going to Diagon Alley to pick up Hogwarts supplies — letting her grandmother take her list and return with the finest textbooks, a new cauldron inlaid with gold, expensive quills, three complete sets of new robes, and a lavish cloak with mink fur trim. 

Her days were split between filling her mind with the books her grandmother gifted her, and pushing her body to its limits. She forced herself to transfer her emotional pain into her academic and athletic pursuits. If she did not limp into the house, sweaty and panting, at noon for a meal and again during the evening, when her grandmother expected her for dinner, she considered the day wasted. Then she would read into the early hours of the morning, until her head dropped onto the latest book and her brain shut down and sent her into a dreamless sleep. This was the best kind, for in it, she could not see her mother's bloody face or hear her father’s violent shouting.

Her grandmother did not comment upon her granddaughter’s daily schedule. Domitia Malfoy understood grief, and in fact, admired Natalie’s concentration and drive towards her goals. Her ability to entirely dedicate her mind, body, and soul to something she was passionate about was a trait the pureblood witch held in high regard. 

In the grandmother she had never met before the death of her parents, Natalie found an encouraging supporter for her passions. Something she was tremendously grateful for and unable to express through words, so Natalie decided she would make it known it through her achievements. This, consequently, kindled her to work even harder at what she put her mind to; if she had been named Quidditch captain, then she would be the best Quidditch captain Slytherin had this century. If she had been named prefect, then she was going to exemplify all that Slytherin house looked for in its students. She would make her name synonymous with the badges that would glint on her chest this year. And in doing so, avoid the past as best as she could. 


	13. Year V: Prefects

This year, it was her grandmother who waved Natalie Borealis off as the Hogwarts Express steamed out of platform Nine and Three Quarters, not her mother. 

But the Slytherin prefect did not think about this fact as she strolled down the aisle of the train, deflecting the apologetic glances she received from curious eyes peering out of compartments. She did not want their sympathy, she did not want to have to think about the events of the summer. Apologies and pity would trap her in a well of despair and misery. And this was liable to break down her carefully constructed barriers and leave her a sobbing, screaming mess. She didn't want to think about it. She wanted everyone around her to act as if nothing had happened. 

Spying a group of familiar faces in a compartment, Natalie ducked into it and was met with several soft smiles from her group of Ravenclaw friends.

“Nat!” Elizabeth Putnam exclaimed as the Slytherin closed the door behind her and secured her belongings. “Did you get any of our letters over the summer?”

“We wrote but you never responded,” Claire Griggs piped in, giving Natalie a concerned look.

“I did, but I was, uh, busy,” she cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Had a lot going on. . . .”

“We heard,” Sarah’s face was grim. “I’m sorry. . . .” The other girls murmured the same thing and Natalie immediately wanted to throw herself off the train.

“It’s alright,” she mumbled, rubbing a hand across her forehead as though willing herself to maintain her composure. “Thanks. But, uh, I don’t want to talk about it. . . actually, I have to go change, I’m supposed to be in the prefect’s compartment. . . .”

“You’re a prefect?” Sarah raised an eyebrow. “That’s not surprising.”

“Aren’t you Quidditch captain, too?” Elizabeth snorted, looking to confirm a rumor she overheard from the Slytherins.

“Er, yeah,” Natalie answered, giving them a sheepish grin. The way the Ravenclaw girls looked at her made her feel embarrassed for having been named prefect and Quidditch captain. “Don’t know how it happened, ha. . . .” she wasn’t sure why she felt the need to justify the badges she had been given. “I, uh, gotta go.” Natalie had to restrain herself from bolting out of the compartment to escape the now awkward atmosphere.

“Bloody hell this is going to be rough,” Natalie groaned to herself as she headed towards the front of the train to the prefect’s compartment upon changing into her Slytherin robes and pinning on both new badges. 

As she walked up the train, at least a dozen people had exited their compartments to offer their condolences for her mother. None mentioned her father. She gave each a smile and a polite nod in return, acting as though their words did not hurt more than if they had just ignored her presence. She wished they would. 

By the time she arrived at the cabin, Natalie was seriously considering conjuring a large sign informing people to not speak the phrases “I’m sorry for your loss” or “please accept my condolences” within range of her hearing. Each was torture to her delicate mental state; she itched to fly laps around the Quidditch pitch until she was dragged off in order to escape it all. She craved the wind blowing through her hair and the adrenaline rush that Quidditch gave her — the escape from her mental demons. 

Natalie slid the cabin door open and surveyed its occupants. Evidently, she was the last to arrive. Her cousin, Abraxas Malfoy, was Head Boy; he and the Head Girl, a pureblood Hufflepuff by the name of Keira Flint, seemed to be carrying out amiable, casual conversation with the prefects while awaiting her presence. 

“Took you long enough,” Abraxas taunted her with a sarcasm more mischievous than sharp. To Natalie, it sounded like a sweet symphony that evoked so much relief in her, she gave her cousin a smile bursting with such affectionate gratitude, it stunned everyone in the compartment. They did not know she had just been bombarded with apologies and sympathy from the whole school, so anything that resembled how she was normally treated was absolutely delightful.

While everyone was silent in their shock, Natalie took the moment to study who the other new prefects were. 

Colten Diggory and Shelby Cox were the Hufflepuffs, Marcellus Thorpe and Laurinda Bates wore the badges for Ravenclaw, while Oberon Talon and Rebecca Macmillan represented Gryffindor. She silently thanked Slughorn and Dippet for making Tom Riddle her fellow Slytherin prefect. If she had been stuck with Avery, Nott, or even Dawson, she would have considered refusing the badge to avoid the headache. 

Of all appointed, she only questioned the reasoning behind Thorpe, who was known to possess some severe character flaws when it came to exam season, and Macmillan, who, while intelligent, was easily distracted, flighty, and downright annoying. 

“Right,” Abraxas coughed, drawing the attention back to himself. “Now that everyone is here we can begin going over the responsibilities the faculty expect you to uphold.”

Keira Flint then launched into a monotonous, rehearsed speech about what being a prefect meant, and all fifth years in the compartment immediately became bored out of their minds. 

The two fifth year Slytherins found themselves staring at the other, communicating silently through their eyes while their expressions remained blank, the same way they would across a class or the library. Their senior housemate observed this with an eyeroll, though Abraxas admitted to himself that they were certainly the best at hiding that they were entirely disinterested in what Flint was saying. It was rather obvious what everyone else in the compartment was doing. 

The gazes of the boys found themselves repeatedly returning to gawk at Natalie Borealis. The girl had radically changed over the summer; growing taller and more mature, her skin was sun-kissed from the outdoors and her figure was robust and nimble, a testament to her athletic predilection. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a long braid, which drew attention to her symmetrical cheekbones and ruthless gray eyes. And there was something swirling within their stormy depths which bestowed a rather uneasy feeling of trepidation — but was enchanting all the same. 

Similarly, the gazes of the girls seemed to keep peeking in wonder over at Tom Riddle. The summer away from Hogwarts had worked its magic on him as well. Save for the seventh year Head Boy, he was the tallest in the cabin, with graceful limbs that seemed to be chiseled out of marble by a Renaissance genius. The contrast between his pale skin, sweeping dark curls and smoldering charcoal eyes could arrest an observer in their tracks. 

“When you’re all done being hormonal little gits, you can proceed down the train and patrol the aisle for any blatant violations of proper conduct,” Abraxas’ voice sliced through the compartment like a powerful curse, making all blink at him rather stupidly before slowly moving out to follow his orders. 

“Natalie, stay here,” her cousin called out, and she paused, turning and moving aside to allow the others to depart. Tom Riddle met her eyes once more as he passed by, noting the blanket of thick, overcast gray clouds which they consisted of at the moment. 

“Er, how are you?” Abraxas asked once everyone else had left. He knew she was living with their grandmother, but hadn’t written to her after she requested to be left alone. 

“I’m fine, how are you?” her reply was toneless and automatic, and she stared at him as though disappointed he had asked her this. 

“You know what I mean, Natalie,” Abraxas stared right back at her. “I barely heard from you all summer. Grandmother said you were keeping yourself busy, but you could have at least written again.”

“Well, I was busy,” Natalie bluntly told him. Her expression was a hard mask. “I had a lot of things to do.”

Streaks of blood on blonde hair. Shards of glass. Murderous eyes.

Natalie visibly winced. She needed to run, to fly, to catch a Snitch and then release it, only to catch it again. Speaking about it, even indirectly, was like the Cruciatus Curse was being performed on her brain. “Sorry, Abraxas. I don’t really feel like talking right now.”

“Okay,” Abraxas said, backing down and watching her flash him a quick smile before turning tail out the door of the compartment. “See you at the feast.”


	14. Year V: Team Bonding

After leaving Abraxas, Natalie patrolled the aisles of the train for a bit, not bothering to try to make it less than obvious that she was avoiding her fellow prefects. She passed by them silently, not meeting their gaze, her pace quick and determined. For some reason, they all looked like they wanted to talk to her. This was the last thing she wanted. 

Once the train neared Hogwarts, she bought a bunch of licorice wands from the candy trolley and slowly made her way back to the compartment with her Ravenclaw friends. Listlessly munching on the wands, she found every excuse to turn around and give a second year a stern look. As such, she didn’t return to the compartment until the train pulled into Hogsmeade station. She had successfully avoided any social interaction, but now, the carriage ride was torturous. Partly because, for the first time, she could see the thestrals which pulled the Hogwarts’ carriages. In addition to this unsettling surprise, Elizabeth, Sarah, and Claire were chatting away; about classes, about boys, about the upcoming feast, and a variety of inane topics. Natalie didn’t want to take part in any of it. So she sat quietly, eating the rest of the licorice and occasionally smiling or laughing when socially necessary, and avoiding looking at the shadows of the skeletal horses outside the carriage windows. 

“Nat, when are you holding Quidditch tryouts?” Sarah pulled her into the conversation, but thankfully, concerning the one topic she was capable of speaking about. 

“Probably before the end of the week, I have to talk to Slughorn about booking the pitch for practices, but. . . .” she trailed off when the group burst into laughter. She gazed at them in bewilderment. “What?” 

“I knew that was going to be what you would respond to, out of everything we’re talking about,” Sarah snickered, “Quidditch. No surprise there.” 

“Oh,” Natalie blinked, still confused, but the Ravenclaws had already changed the subject; now, Elizabeth Putnam was bemoaning her newfound love for Oberon Talon, and Sarah and Claire were smirking. 

The rest of the carriage ride thankfully passed quickly, and Natalie hastily jumped out of the carriage. She ignored the snorting and stamping thestrals and melted into the crowd of students. Allowing them to carry her up into the castle, she followed the swell into the Great Hall, where she hurried to seat herself at the Slytherin table. She soon found herself attacked by Adolphus Lestrange, Eric Dawson, and Evan Rosier. 

“Here’s our captain, boys!” Adolphus crowed, practically throwing himself into the seat on her left. Dawson did the same on her right. Now, squeezed on the bench between two of her teammates, she smiled to herself; they would always know how to help her escape her demons. Rosier slipped into the seat across the table from the three of them and gave her a toothy grin. The third prankster of the group was always a bit more restrained than Lestrange and Dawson. 

“We’ve been looking all over for you,” Eric sounded almost whiny as he demanded her attention. “We couldn’t find you on the train, and you never wrote us any Quidditch letters this summer.”

“I don’t want to talk about the summer!” she found herself snapping at the three of them, and they froze; Evan’s blue eyes widened, Adolphus instinctively scooted himself a few inches away from her, and Eric almost slapped a hand over his mouth as if to take his words back. 

“I’m. . . er, sorry,” she muttered, lowering her eyes and realizing how aggressive her tone had sounded. It hadn’t been deliberate, it had just burst out at the mention of the summer. There was a small voice that threatened to start screaming in the back of her head. Merlin, she wished Quidditch tryouts were tonight. “Um, yeah, you didn’t see me because I was patrolling the train, and was sitting with the Ravenclaws.”

“Ha, we knew you were gonna be prefect!” Rosier snatched up the change in topic, a grin split upon his face and he reached over to punch Adolphus on the arm. “Give me those Galleons, Lestrange.”

“Fine,” Adolphus groaned, fishing into his pocket for a handful of gold. 

Natalie chuckled, giving Jonathan Shaw and Giles Morrison a smile as they joined their teammates at the table. 

“Where’s Abraxas?” she craned her neck to find her cousin, the only missing member of the team. In doing so, she met the eyes of Tom Riddle, who was currently walking towards the team with Abraxas. Evidently, the two were discussing prefect responsibilities.

Natalie tore her gaze from Tom’s questioning eyes and instead locked eyes with Abraxas. She beckoned him over towards her and the team — who were all making various gestures to get Abraxas’ attention and summon him towards them.

“You really ought to consider how much of a scene you all make when you do that,” Abraxas muttered once he neared and took the seat beside Giles Morrison, slightly across from Natalie. Tom Riddle had elected the other side of the table, and quietly slid into the seat next to Dawson, one seat away from Natalie.

“The Captain would like you to sit with us,” Adolphus informed him, making Rosier and Dawson snort at his pompous tone. 

“Oh, really?” Abraxas sarcastically remarked, turning to look at his cousin, noting she looked much more herself than she did on the train earlier. 

“Yes,” a small grin appeared on her face; she narrowed her gray eyes at her cousin, ignoring the piercing stare Tom Riddle was sending her way. She knew he was intently studying her, but she didn’t have time for that right now. All she could focus on was the Quidditch season. That was all that mattered. “I want good team chemistry this year.”

“Of course,” Abraxas said, his eyes roving up to watch the first years scurry up the Great Hall after Professor Dumbledore.

Rosier, Dawson, and Lestrange snickered in excitement around her. Team chemistry usually meant team pranking schemes. They were all well aware of this.

“Bets on how many new Slytherins this year, anyone?” Jonathan Shaw announced as the sorting began and a flurry commenced from around the table at his words. 

“Ten,” Adolphus declared, looking incredibly sure of himself.

“I gotta go with nine, then,” Eric slapped a few Galleons onto the table and punched Adolphus in the arm for taking his original bet. 

Natalie pushed her own gold into the growing pile. “My money’s on seven.”

“Eight,” Rosier added with a smirk. 

“Twelve,” was Giles’ guess, while Jonathan thought, “fifteen,” and Abraxas refused to take part in their gambling, saying it was not appropriate for the Head Boy to be involved in such schemes. They all gave him an eye-roll at this. 

As the sorting continued, they eagerly kept tabs on how many times the word Slytherin was shouted from the sorting hat. By the time they got to the end of the alphabet, Eric Dawson was grinning like a cat over fresh cream. 

“Nine, it is,” he smirked at the team as they either rolled their eyes or muttered a fond curse at him. “Now I’m glad you took my bet, Lestrange.”

“Here you go, Dawson,” Natalie said, pushing the pile of gold towards the delighted blond. She swept it across the table with one arm and he stretched his hands out to receive it with clear enthusiasm. But when his hand brushed against hers as the money was transferred, he nearly leapt back in shock. 

“Bloody hell!” he exclaimed, staring at his palm as though it had just burst into flames. “What did you do?”

“What do you mean?” Natalie frowned, giving him a questioning glance. She had no idea what he was on about. The others looked between them in confusion. She was just as bewildered. 

“When our hands touched — it was like, like you put a charm on me or something-”

Eric Dawson was interrupted by Adolphus Lestrange and Evan Rosier bursting into raucous howls of laughter. 

“Oh Merlin, that really is the worst flirting I’ve ever seen you do, Eric,” Adolphus was slapping a hand against the table, where platters of food and golden plates had appeared with the end of the sorting. Rosier clutched at his stomach, doubled over with laughter. Even Morrison, Shaw, and Abraxas were smirking after a moment. 

“Please stop,” Rosier begged, tears nearly streaming from his eyes, “I can’t listen to it much longer and you’ve only said one thing.”

“What?” Dawson gaped at both of them. “I’m not flirting, what-”

“Oh, please,” Adolphus snorted, giving him a sharp look but continuing to find his words entertaining. “Don’t start.”

By now, even Natalie was sniggering at how red Dawson’s face had turned; he was completely flustered, something which wasn’t seen often on him. 

“I wasn’t trying to flirt, I swear-” Dawson’s protests were in vain, as by now Rosier and Lestrange were mocking him. Rosier reached a hand across the table towards Lestrange, who grasped his hand in his and mimed as if he was swooning. Adolphus raised his other hand to his forehead and affected a high-pitched voice. 

“Oh! Princess! It’s like you’ve put me under a spell!” 

The table around them broke into howls of laughter, even Tom Riddle allowed a small smirk to break across the cold mask he watched the scene with. 


	15. Year V: New Study Spots

Tom Riddle frowned when he wound his way to the back of the library and found the table he and his fellow Slytherin prefect always occupied to be empty. 

It was the same time he and Natalie Borealis had been appearing in the library together since their first year. Never before had she failed to show up. They held an unspoken agreement to study and complete assignments at the same table, occasionally bouncing ideas off the other or asking the other to proofread an essay.

Believing her to be running late due to prefect duties or her seemingly never ceasing Quidditch captain problems (the latter of which she had a tendency to blow out of proportion), Tom settled into his accustomed seat and continued working on an essay Professor Merrythought assigned the fifth years on the functions of the Patronus Charm. It was only the second day of classes, but the fifth year professors were not taking their OWL year lightly. 

Tom Riddle quickly found he was unable to focus on the task before him, as his mind preferred to ponder ideas as to where the blonde Slytherin could be. 

His eyes strayed from the book in front of him at the slightest movement; as a consequence, he ended up making eye contact with Claire Griggs, (who blushed under his intense, expectant gaze), Oberon Talon, (who sent a respectful nod at his fellow prefect), and Myrtle Warren (who blanched, ducked her head and darted behind a bookshelf). 

The Slytherin prefect disliked each of these students, save Talon. 

Griggs, while certainly book-smart, was a weak-minded follower, and Tom often observed her giving Natalie Borealis envious looks behind the Slytherin’s back despite the friendship they held. 

Warren was nothing more than an annoying mudblood whom Natalie had spoken to one time and later described the conversation to Tom as being “dreadful”. 

Oberon Talon, however, was a Gryffindor prefect and member of the Slug Club. Tom had held several intellectually engaging conversations with him during Slughorn’s dinner parties, and his level-headed logic was a welcome equalizer to Rebecca Macmillan’s overbearing hyperactivity.

With an internal sigh of irritation, Tom Riddle packed up his books and rose from the table. He strolled out of the library and entered the busy halls of Hogwarts. His eyes roving the crowd; he knew his search for a glimpse of platinum blonde hair was futile. He did, however, find the closest thing. A couple of her teammates.

“Morrison! Shaw!” his call made the seventh and sixth years respectively, halt and turn around to discover the source.

“Riddle,” the blond Giles Morrison cautiously greeted him.

“Have you seen your Captain?” Tom asked, well aware of the new nicknames for Natalie Borealis upon her ascendancy to leadership.

“Well, we have a preseason practice in five hours, so she’s probably already at the pitch,” Jonathan Shaw joked, amusement flickering in his brown eyes. 

“Practice is in  _ three  _ hours, dimwit,” Morrison corrected the Keeper with a shake of his head. “Cap requested to move the time up and Slughorn agreed. She told us at breakfast, remember?”

“Bloody hell!” Shaw exclaimed, alarm spreading across the scattering of freckles on his face at this reminder. “That’s two less hours I have to write two Transfiguration essays and a Potions assignment! All due tomorrow morning! I’ve got to get going, then — I’d check the Quidditch pitch for Cap, if I were you, Riddle.” The two bid him farewell before Shaw raced down the hallway, cursing under his breath while Morrison followed, laughing and taunting his teammate. 

Tom Riddle shook his head at the pair and sighed to himself once more. He had an intuitive feeling they were correct in Natalie being at the pitch, despite their jests about it.

Sure enough, a brief walk out of the school and down to the Quidditch pitch revealed the blonde hair of the girl he was seeking. She sat on the field itself, just beside the tunnel leading to the large doors where the teams would enter the arena from the locker rooms. Her back was against the wooden boards of the tunnel, and an assortment of books and parchment was out before her, charmed to not blow away in the capricious September wind. 

“New study spot?” Tom Riddle called out upon approaching within a few paces of her. Her gray eyes rose from the parchment she was scribbling a few lines of her frenetic handwriting on to meet his own inquisitive charcoal eyes. As he looked down at her, he raised an eyebrow, as if passing judgement over her decision to complete her school work outside, on the grounds of the Quidditch pitch.

“Yes,” she said as though it ought to have been obvious, pausing to dip her eagle feather quill into the floating pot of ink beside her.

“Library not up to your standards anymore?” Tom asked, making the decision to settle himself on the ground beside her, to her surprise.

Natalie shrugged with an overwhelming indifference, and then gestured to the expansive pitch before them with a wave of her hand as if to explain that the pitch was more conducive to the completion of academic work than the library.

“You could at least sit in the stands,” Tom remarked, and she rolled her eyes. He noticed they were the same color as the foreboding, overcast sky above them. “Instead of on the ground.”

“Okay,” she droned, making a great deal of glancing over and looking him up and down as though judging him. Her eyes were wondering why he was there, and he read this immediately. 

“I’m here because someone decided to not show up to the library at our usual time and did not inform me of this decision,” Tom affected an exceptionally posh voice just to aggravate her.

“Okay,” Natalie shrugged again, ignoring his dramatic accusation and returning to her essay, to Tom Riddle’s vexation. Silence descended between them as one prefect scratched away and the other observed her with shrewd black eyes.

“I’m sorry about your mother,” when Tom finally spoke his tone was now direct and sincere as he studied her to gauge her reaction. He knew it was the reason why she was acting differently. 

“Don’t be,” Natalie’s eyes flew to his and she snapped at him, taut and aggressive at the mention of the events of the summer. He had finally captured her full attention. “I don’t want your socially obliged apologies. If that’s why you came here, I might hex you.”

Tom had no doubts about this claim. “I came because I want you to look over my Defense essay due tomorrow.”

“Give it to me,” her voice was firm and controlled, but he could spy the twisters of emotion within her gray eyes. Mentioning her mother had brought the storm to the surface, he was intrigued to note this. “Is it your conclusion? You’ve always been annoyingly verbal when you should just end the damn essay,” she bluntly grumbled this to him. He chuckled as he pulled the scroll of parchment from his bag and handed it over. 

Natalie swapped him her current scroll, which was the beginning of the Potions assignment Slughorn had given them earlier that day. She unfurled his parchment and began to scan his cramped, leftward slanting handwriting while he settled down to scour her feverish, near illegible scrawl that only he and the professors seemed to be literate in. 

They were silent once more, the only sounds the keening of the wind, the distant rumbling of thunder across the mountains, and the occasional scratching of a quill as they added a note here or crossed out a line there.

“I read a book over the summer,” Natalie suddenly said, though Tom did not look up, accustomed to her unpredictable outbursts of knowledge. “By this wizard who works in magical law enforcement; he was trying to create new ways of determining if someone was guilty of a crime or not. He gathered handwriting samples from those sent to Azkaban for ten years and came up with psychological evaluations based off their handwriting.” 

“What would he say about mine?” Tom asked, knowing she was heading in that direction anyway.

“A very private individual, struggling to comprehend and express emotions to both himself and others. Intelligent, with an unwavering, deeply rooted philosophy.”

Tom Riddle chuckled at her droning evaluation of his handwriting. He flourished her scroll of parchment out before him and cleared his throat. “Yours hints at an inexorable passion masking itself under an indifferent exterior, lying latent, waiting to be ignited. I’ve read that same book.”

“Okay,” Natalie repeated the syllables, completely void of interest. She then handed his essay back to him. “It's good, but condense the last four sentences into one — they’re all saying the same thing.” 

Tom accepted both the parchment and the criticism from her, and returned her Potions assignment. “For what you have already, it’s at least E material. Just make sure you write neat enough for Slughorn to read it.”

“Oh, we’re grading them?” Natalie raised an eyebrow at this. “You get a Poor, then.”

“That grade seems to contradict your former assessment,” Tom smirked, watching the way the lights danced in her gray eyes and how they reacted in response to his words. At his current quip, they darkened with amusement before glazing over with unconcern, almost appearing drowned. 

“Okay,” she said it again, and he was growing annoyed. She was switching from complete apathy to sarcastic comments and then back again. It was unpredictable and frustrating, and he did not like it one bit. 

Natalie Borealis packed her books up with a wave of her wand, then swung her bag over her shoulder. She jumped to her feet with an agile hop, running a hand through her long blonde ponytail; she grimaced at the sky above. Tom Riddle rose to stand beside her, noting their newfound height differences. While she was certainly not miniature, he still towered over her. 

“It’s going to rain,” Natalie muttered under her breath, more to herself than to him. “I’m not cancelling practice. Lestrange is going to complain but he can Avada Kedavra himself.”

“Then you’d be down a Chaser,” Tom remarked, and she looked almost surprised he had heard her.

“Metaphorically,” she muttered in a dull voice, sticking out a hand to catch a few drops of rain beginning to patter down onto the green turf of the pitch, speaking again, as if only to herself. “I’ll have to change parts of our practice plan because of this. . . . I can do that at dinner.” Then she shot one last glance up at the sky, shrugged, and turned away, heading into the tunnel that led to the Quidditch locker rooms. 

“I was under the impression the Great Hall is that way,” Tom’s words made her pause as he pointed up to the castle, where he had come from.

Natalie smirked, tossing her long ponytail over her shoulder. “There’s an underground passageway leading from the locker rooms up to a spot in the dungeons, near Slughorn’s office.”

“Since when?” Tom was astonished at this piece of news, having believed he had puzzled out all of Hogwarts secrets in what would be his fifth year now. Evidently, the school still held its surprises.

“Since Salazar, Godric, Rowena, and Helga built it,” Natalie said, tugging open the door and heading into the tunnel. Tom right on her heels as the rain turned into a downpour. “Dippet told me about it this year. It’s only accessible by the Quidditch team captains, but we’re allowed to bring people with us through it. I guess you’re coming with me now.”

“Fascinating,” Tom ignored how her comment had turned into a gibe as he followed her past the team locker rooms. She stopped before what appeared to simply be a wooden wall boasting the large painted crest of Hogwarts. 

Natalie turned and stretched out her hand towards him. Tom stared at her in confusion for a moment, glancing between her palm and her waiting gray eyes as though bewildered as to what she expected of him. 

Finally, she sighed in exasperation, reached forward, and snatched his hand up with hers. A zing of lively energy seemed to flash through him upon the contact with her skin, knocking the breath out of his body and sending thoughts racing around his mind. Then he felt as though he had been doused with several buckets of cold water as Natalie pulled him after her, straight through what looked like a solid wall. The colors of the Hogwarts crest seemed to twirl around them before they emerged in a subterranean tunnel that was faintly scented with damp earth and broomstick shiner. 

Tom Riddle had yet to regain his ability to breathe, think, or speak while Natalie had released his hand (he found himself yearning to come in contact with her skin again, a thought which was both horrifying and alluring to him — he wondered if this was what Dawson had felt at dinner the other night), pulled out her wand and muttered a brief  _ “lumos”. _

They had been walking in silence for several minutes when Natalie finally spoke. 

“Don’t be too upset that you didn’t know this was here until now,” she sniggered at his taciturnity.

“I’m. . . not. . . .” he managed to say, which only made her laugh again.

“Nice ring, by the way,” she remarked, “where’d you get it?”

“Family heirloom,” he quickly tossed this out, unsettled by the fact that she had noticed the ring he now wore, which he had taken from the Gaunt family household after murdering his last blood relative. 

“That’s interesting,” she hummed, growing unconcerned again, before she halted and he nearly stumbled into her. 

“I hear people,” she leaned forward to place an ear against the stones that made up the end of the tunnel, gray eyes narrowing in focus. 

Tom studied these stones curiously for a moment, realizing that they were identical to the walls of Hogwarts. Then his gaze moved to observe the captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, and he understood why his dormmates; Avery, Nott, Dawson, and Lestrange, along with the rest of the male population of the school, would not shut up about her. She had a fierce kind of beauty, one that drew the eye, jumbled the tongue, and bewitched the mind. In the tempest of her eyes and the flash of her teeth could be glimpsed the vehemence that fueled her ambitions and dreams. It was this intense flame blazing under her cold exterior that equated itself into her dazzling charisma that either reeled others in or terrified them away. 

Tom Riddle realized he was staring when Natalie Borealis snapped her fingers in his face and barked at him. “It’s just Slughorn. Let’s go.” And she stepped into the wall in front of her, vanishing through it. Tom followed after her, appearing on the other side beside the team captain, who had become engaged in a conversation with Professor Slughorn.

“And, ah, Tom, m’boy!” Slughorn looked delighted to see the other Slytherin prefect. “Miss Borealis kind enough to allow you through the Captains’ Corridor, I see.”

“Yes, Professor,” Tom smoothly answered, well aware Natalie was rolling her eyes out of Slughorn’s sight. “I was unaware it existed.”

“Just one of the many secrets this school hides,” Slughorn chuckled, patting his rotund stomach with joviality. “I’m glad to have stumbled upon you two! As I was just informing Mr. Malfoy, I’d be overjoyed if both of you would stop by the little Halloween get-together I’m planning. It’s still early, but I’ve got to snatch up my favorites before another professor makes plans. Nothing formal this year, just some of my best students and a ghost or two.”

“We’re scheduled for Quidditch practice that evening, Professor,” Natalie looked miffed that Abraxas had not informed Slughorn of this fact. 

“Oh dear, how silly of me!” Slughorn exclaimed, “I did request the pitch for you that night, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” Natalie persisted, her demeanor brazening under the head of house’s deliberating tutters but her expression remained a cool mask. 

“Well, I suppose we can move the practice to earlier in the day-”

“I believe Hufflepuff has the pitch booked for that afternoon,” Tom added in, sounding rather suave. He smirked to himself when Natalie shot him a glare, as though infuriated he was trying to steal her job of speaking on behalf of the team.

“Ah, well, may we end the practice early, Natalie? I know how hardworking the team is, you’ve requested the pitch be booked everyday for Slytherin this year — perhaps afford yourselves a small break? The first game against Gryffindor  _ is  _ the day before. Rest is a requirement for all athletes, as I’m sure you know.”

Natalie did not know, nor did she care for Slughorn wishing to curtail her team’s practice times. Anger was swimming within her eyes, but her face remained stoic. Tom Riddle had to check himself to prevent his laughter at her explosive potential. 

“I’ll have to see, Professor,” she uttered the emotionless words, nothing but a polite smile on her face, and Slughorn was oblivious to the apoplectic ire within her gray eyes. 

“Wonderful, my dear! I’ll see you two in class tomorrow,” he sent the pair a mirthful wink before waddling off down the hall. When he was out of earshot, Natalie erupted.

“Can you believe him?! Why does he always do this? End practice early just for a stupid party?! Is he even our head of house? Does he even care about the team? This is bloody ridiculous! How dare he think he can cut off our practice just so he can have a butterbeer with us!”

“He is right about the game the day before,” Tom reminded her, his tone calm and collected in contrast to the livid seething she had spiralled into upon Slughorn’s departure. Tom loved when she was riled up. It was superbly entertaining, and he appreciated being one of the select few students in the school whom she allowed to witness her potency. He began to walk towards the Great Hall, and she stomped after him, Slytherin robes snapping around her.

“I know we have a game that weekend!” she snarled, sounding very insulted he would even insinuate the possibility of her being unaware of the Quidditch schedule for the entire school year.

“Why practice immediately after the game?”

“We need to practice!”

Tom Riddle smirked down at her, taunting sarcasm creeping into his voice. “Do you expect to lose to Gryffindor? How wonderful to know you hold faith in your team’s abilities this year.”

“I hold  _ extreme  _ faith in my team’s abilities,  _ because  _ of how much we practice!” they had arrived at the entrance of the Great Hall, and she hissed at him before entering, fully aware he was just pushing her buttons to enrage her further. But she was too infuriated at Slughorn for infringing upon her escape from her demons to bother to shut Tom Riddle down. 


	16. Year V: Slytherin versus Gryffindor

“It must be game day!” Adolphus Lestrange laughed with glee as he hopped into the seat across from Natalie Borealis at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall. Eric Dawson was sitting beside the captain and encouraging her to eat breakfast despite the nausea she was complaining about. Rosier and Morrison watched this from across the table. It was a morning game, and the Quidditch teams were the only occupants of the Great Hall at the moment. However, both were pretending the other was not present. 

“Is she doing it again?” Abraxas Malfoy sighed as he joined the group, which was now only missing their Keeper, Jonathan Shaw. 

“Yes,” Dawson groaned, flashing Natalie a look of annoyance as she drummed her fingers against the table in nervous anticipation. The eggs he had piled onto her plate for her nearly untouched.

“If you don’t catch the Snitch because you don’t eat anything, Cap, I swear to Merlin-” Adolphus’ threat vanished as Natalie turned and sent him a murderous glare. 

“Why aren’t  _ you  _ eating?” she demanded in such a cold voice, he quickly began filling his plate. 

“Yes, ma’am,” he muttered, “what’s our strategy then, Captain?”

She straightened her posture and glanced over at the Gryffindor team. Sure, they were talented, but so was Slytherin. And the snakes had undoubtedly worked harder since school had begun. It was going to be a close game, one that came down to the Snitch. The anxiety bubbling in the pit of her stomach knew this, making her ever more eager to rush out onto the field and into the sky as soon as possible. This was all she could think about, and the voices in her mind were silent because of her unyielding focus on the game. It was like a fantastic drug. 

“Kill them.”

The boys around her erupted into appreciative laughter at her concise strategy; Dawson, Lestrange, and Rosier going in for high-fives, while Abraxas and Morrison, the two seventh years, shared an amused glance. 

“Where the hell is Shaw?” Natalie growled, not spotting her Keeper in the stream of students beginning to enter the hall. 

“Coming in now,” Rosier pointed out, and sure enough, Jonathan Shaw came rushing into the Hall, his brown hair uncombed and his green Quidditch robes clearly having been hastily thrown on. 

“Overslept,” he blushingly explained with a moan, panic dancing through his dark eyes as he met the steely gaze of Natalie Borealis. Not only did she frighten him but he was terrified of disappointing her.

“Hurry up and eat,” she simply said, to his immense relief. “We’re heading down to the pitch soon.”

Once the captain was satisfied her team had fed themselves, she rose from her seat and they were quick to follow. Enthusiastic cheers and shouts of good luck trailed them out of the hall. Lestrange, Dawson, and Rosier were particularly enjoying the attention, taking it in with whoops of excitement. Natalie kept a stoic face, muttering at the three boys her age to not let it get to their heads. The elder players on the team sniggered under their breaths, ignoring the stony look she gave them. 

The time between entering the Slytherin locker room and strolling out onto the field was blur for Natalie. She briefly remembered strapping on her wrist and shin guards, straightening her Quidditch robes, (a silver number four glittered under her last name) and making a few brief remarks to her team. She knew they wouldn't need much encouragement; they wanted to beat Gryffindor as much as she did. Their house was depending on them to put the lions in their place, and they couldn’t let them down.

“Proudfoot,” Natalie shook hands with the curly-haired Gryffindor captain who smirked down at her. Emmett Proudfoot was a year older and a formidable Beater. But his burlesque figure made him more apt to hit Bludgers than be able to dodge them. She had made sure her team knew this well in advance. 

“Borealis,” he nodded to her, his respect for the younger captain not at all restraining him from sending a wink at her. “Watch yourself up there, wouldn’t want anything to ruin that pretty face of yours.”

Natalie elected to ignore his comment, though a flame sparked within her eyes as she awarded him a withering glare. She wrenched her hand out of his with enough aggression his arm was forcefully thrown away. The audience did not miss this act; Slytherin crowd began roaring while Gryffindor rained down jeers. The noise bounced around the stadium, deafening the players on the field. It sent a riveting thrill through Natalie, shivers rippled down her spine and she trembled in pleasure because of the reaction she drew from the crowd. It was intoxicating. Now she just needed to get on her broom. . . . 

Natalie’s breathing steadied the moment she mounted her broom and rose in the air. With the whistling of the fresh autumn air around her, worries and concerns were swept aside. Her mind only had to focus on finding a tiny glint of gold in the vast stadium. A task which was so close to impossibility, she received a rush of adrenaline from merely contemplating it. But her head was clear and her muscles focused — this responsibility, catching the Snitch — was what her entire being revolved around. 

The Quaffle was in play, and Natalie was pleased that their incessant practicing was paying off. Lestrange, Morrison, and Dawson had snatched control of the ball and the score was forty to nothing only minutes into the game. Slytherin screaming its excitement while Gryffindor bemoaned its misfortune. She knew she was going to have to fight Proudfoot for pitch times after this game. He was going to realize it was practice that made a team better, not talent alone. 

She patrolled the stadium, eyes scanning the arena like a hawk. Of all the houses in Hogwarts, she disliked playing Gryffindor the most — first for obvious reasons — but also because quite often her eyes would latch onto a shimmer of gold somewhere, and her blood would quicken — only for it to be the gold trim on the robes of the Gryffindor players names and numbers. When she grew restless, or wished to scope out another part of the pitch, she would perform a graceful loop in the air and zoom in the opposite direction. This action would delude Gryffindor’s Seeker into thinking she had spotted the Snitch, and send the crowd into hysterics. Hearing the roar from the stands was always a delight to her ears. 

“Nice one, Rosier,” Natalie murmured to herself, having just witnessed Evan Rosier send a Bludger directly at a Gryffindor Chaser carrying the Quaffle. The shot being well-aimed, the Quaffle was relinquished. The score now seventy to thirty, Slytherin remaining ahead. 

“Dammit!” the Seeker yelled when a Gryffindor Chaser rammed sideways into Morrison and snatched away the Quaffle. Two red-robed Chasers tossed the scarlet ball back and forth between themselves before sending it home past Jonathan Shaw. Muttering curses under her breath, Natalie urged her broom forwards, zipping around the edges of the pitch, gray eyes hungry for the elusive Snitch. She needed to catch it soon. 

Gryffindor proceeded to score several more times in rapid succession, to Slytherin’s ire; it was soon seventy to sixty and the Slytherin captain was growing apoplectic. She had to catch the Snitch soon, but she had not caught even a glimpse of the tiny gold ball from where she hovered just above the game play. This was the part that frustrated her the most — sometimes it seemed the only thing she could do to help her team was catch the Snitch. And sometimes, she wanted to do more than just that. 

Infuriated at the score and at the still to be spotted Snitch, Natalie descended into a dive, aiming directly at the group of Gryffindors playing keep away with the Quaffle. Letting out an enraged shriek, she flew directly into their midst, forcing them to scatter with astonished shouts and lose possession of the Quaffle. She was vaguely aware of the Slytherin crowd chanting their gratitude and of Dawson yelling something at her before her flashing eyes found their objective. The gleaming Snitch lazily floated a few feet from the ground, just beneath where she had broken up the Gryffindors. 

Her lips curled into a snarling grin as she developed intense tunnel vision; aware of nothing save the golden ball she was barrelling towards with ruthless ferocity. Her hand already stretching out before her, eager to clasp the cool metal within her fingers and feel the slight wiggling of its wings as she raised it in victory.

When the race for the Snitch began, the audience began collectively screaming, for an assortment of reasons. As Natalie Borealis streaked downwards towards the only object that could end the game, Gryffindor’s Seeker, Thaddeus Fawley, frantically zoomed across the field, while Emmett Proudfoot redirected a Bludger down towards the Slytherin Seeker.

It all happened at once: Natalie wrapped her scrabbling fingers around the golden Snitch just as the Bludger, coming from her right, whammed into the side of her ribcage. Pain shattered through her chest, and the momentum from the hit flung her sideways off her broom, to her left, where Thaddeus Fawley was unable to come to a stop in time. He smashed directly into the opposing Seeker, and was toppled from his broom. The ground only a few feet below, both, now lacking broomsticks, fell downwards to the hard pitch. 

Natalie landed on her side, letting out a choked scream that seemed to echo around the stadium as acute pain swept through her entire body, immediately killing her victory high. She rolled onto her back, wheezing for air as her face contorted itself from the trauma. The clouds above became blurry, and she became aware of wetness on her cheeks. Nevertheless, despite feeling as though she had broken half the bones in her body and hardly able to breathe, she weakly raised her arm into the air, clutching the Snitch in her hand. The roar from the stadium sliced through her head, causing her to wince and blink repeatedly, trying to clear her hazy vision. She realized her teammates had landed and were crowding around her, so she coughed out a delighted giggle and waved the Snitch at them. 

“We. . . won!”


	17. Year V: Reciprocity

The next thing Natalie Borealis knew, she was lying in a bed in the hospital wing, her entire body numb and her head pounding. Her eyes blearily opened, blinking stupidly at her surroundings. Then she flashed a brilliant smile — the faces of the entire team came floating into her vision, for they were all gathered around her bed, staring at her expectantly. 

“Hi — ah. . . .” she gasped as she attempted to shift her position and ripples of warm pain seemed to pool throughout her body, centralized around her chest. She was stopped by a firm hand resting atop her shoulder. She flinched under the unexpected contact, a motion which jarred her ribcage further, as her gaze flew over to spot Tom Riddle sitting in the chair directly beside her pillow. 

“Don't move,” he sternly commanded, removing his hand from her shoulder, an inquisitive expression coming over him at her reaction. “Your ribs are mending themselves.” 

“W-what?” She stared at him, horror slowly dawning as she now understood why it felt as though an iron vice was wrapped around her chest, inhibiting her breathing to shallow breaths. Even speaking was a challenge, trying to draw air into her lungs to form the syllables made her wince. “What?!” 

“You broke four of them,” Tom bluntly told her, his face an unreadable mask. Adolphus Lestrange smacked his palm to his face and groaned as the only person present who was not a member of the team continued to inform the captain of what had happened. “Your femur cracked from the collision with Fawley and the fall, and you snapped a wrist.” Tom Riddle was staring at her with disapproval, as though she were a child who ought to have known better before involving herself in such a mess. 

Natalie Borealis looked like he had just told her that Hogwarts was under attack by Muggles and they had to evacuate immediately. Her face blanched, turning lighter than her hair, and her gray eyes glazed over, growing as round as galleons. 

“Riddle, you should not have said that,” Abraxas Malfoy cleared his throat, sending the younger Slytherin a stony look. Tom Riddle ignored the Head Boy, his eyes had locked with Natalie’s petrified gray as her breathing grew erratic. 

“How. . . long?” She spat out the words, and Eric Dawson stepped up to answer, innately understanding what she wanted to know. 

“Madam Reese said at least two weeks because of the extent of everything. Your ribs are pretty bad. She can heal the bones but, er, when they shattered they sort of, er, punctured part of one of your lungs and it was filling with blood and all so she’s not approving you to play Quidditch. . . er, until she sees fit. . . .” 

Silence fell within the hospital wing until the statement clicked in Natalie’s brain and her body reacted on its own accord, serving as an outlet for the shrieking and clawing demons in her head. She lunged forward, ignoring the flashes of pain that spiked through her body. At the outbreak of turmoil within her mind, all physical ailments faded. “Two weeks?” The words were ripped from her lips like flesh off her raw skin. They seemed to paralyze her mind and redden her vision. “Two weeks?!” She was scrambling up as if to fling herself from the bed and sprint out of the wing. The boys around her had frozen, stunned by her violent conduct, before they jumped into action.

“She's gonna hurt herself more!” Adolphus Lestrange barked, while Abraxas Malfoy shouted to Giles Morrison and Jonathan Shaw, “get Madam Reese, now!” Meanwhile, Tom Riddle leapt to his feet, seized the riotous girl by her shoulders and dragged her back down to the bed. He held her in place as she writhed and struggled under his grasp; so much so that Eric Dawson rushed forwards to assist in immobilizing her limbs. 

“Let — go — of — me!” Natalie snarled to the boys, any and all pain she was experiencing had vanished as a result of her mental shutdown. All she could focus on was the fact that she was unable to participate in her favorite sport, her passion, her escape from the crushing demons of reality for  _ two weeks.  _ Two weeks felt like two lifetimes. How was she supposed to survive?

“Stop fighting or I’ll stun you!” Tom Riddle growled down at her, having now been forced to hop onto the bed with Dawson and use their combined body masses to attempt to control her emotional fulminating.

“Piss off!” she grunted to him, lightning was flashing in her storm cloud eyes, drawing his own smoldering charcoal eyes to them and arresting them. Until Madam Reese burst onto the scene, led by Morrison and Shaw, and immediately took charge. With a sharp spell, Natalie’s limbs froze, to her ire. Tom Riddle and Eric Dawson slowly backed away, watching her closely. 

“Not fair!” Natalie yelped as her body was stifled as an outlet for her inner rage. She could feel it building within her; the thought of foregoing Quidditch was equated with death in her addicted mind. That the reason for this was obtained in a Quidditch game felt like a perverted joke. 

“Miss Borealis, calm yourself!” the iron-haired Madam Reese sniped at her. The Hogwarts healer began to mutter a few spells under her breath, and Natalie felt a slight warmth in various areas of her body at this. A frustrated and worried look came over Madam Reese’s face and Natalie’s internal turbulence threatened to increase.

“Is it true?” she demanded, catching the healer’s eye. She didn’t care that she could hardly breathe, she needed to know. “I’ll be out for two weeks?”

“More, judging from how you managed to interfere with the potions’ effects on healing your body,” Madam Reese harshly reprimanded her, “your little tantrum just worsened your already serious injuries.”

This scolding suddenly and dramatically deflated Natalie’s fury. Like a shrinking charm, she seemed to sink back into the bed, becoming a small, frail figure of frightened horror. Her eyes darted upwards to stare at the arches of the ceiling. She attempted to suck in a breath of air, but failed — suddenly realizing that her lungs seemed to be full of a sticky liquid. She began choking and coughing — pulled from within her mind to focus back on her physical body. She felt a warm substance spatter on her lips when she heaved, beginning to panic because she could not breathe. Raising a hand to her mouth, the redness that dotted her fingers informed her that it was blood. Her eyes widened, then flickered around to everyone crowded around her bed until they settled on an incensed Madam Reese. The healer read the growing panic and horror within their gray depths as blood dribbled into her lungs, and she kicked the other Slytherins out of the wing so she could work her healing magic as best she could. 

* * *

The following day was Halloween, and it was to be Slughorn’s scheduled party. For most of the day, Natalie Borealis lay in the hospital wing, sleeping off the fatiguing effects of the potions used to mend her bones and lungs. She grudgingly awoke late in the afternoon, and upon discovering the exact time — and the fact that she felt immensely better — immediately grew annoyed. 

“We have practice in an hour,” Natalie grumbled to Madam Reese when the healer came by to see how her array of cracked and shattered bones was coming along. 

“Miss Borealis, you aren't taking a step out of this wing anytime soon,” Reese repeated what she'd been telling the Slytherin captain every time the girl began complaining about her condition. 

Natalie muttered something about how “we have to practice” and then switched tactics, her voice now soothing and diplomatic. “Professor Slughorn is expecting me to make an appearance at his Halloween party tonight.” 

“Professor Slughorn witnessed your collision and has been informed you are bedridden in the hospital wing until I say so,” Reese was implacable against the tricks and charms of her swirling gray eyes. The healer murmured another spell that relieved a bit of the pressure wrapping around her lower rib cage, and then stalked off to care for a younger Hufflepuff girl who kept coughing up tiny sparrows. 

“‘Until I say so’,” Natalie mocked the healer, pulling faces behind her back. Her expression lapsed back into irritated stoicism when the hospital wing doors opened and a group of green-robed boys slithered in. The Slytherin team strolled over towards her bed and clustered themselves around her.

“Hi, Cap,” Adolphus Lestrange greeted her with a solemn smile. The blonde girl was quietly laying in bed, staring up at them with impressed wonder lightening her gray eyes. 

“We figured we would still go practice,” Eric Dawson told her, scuffing a foot against the floor. “Even if you can't. . . .” 

“If you want us to,” Evan Rosier tossed out.

“Good, because I do,” she grinned up at them and they all broke into grins themselves. “You have a plan?” 

“We’re having some of the younger students come out, and we’re just going to scrimmage. Light practice, nothing too extreme,” Abraxas explained; it had clearly been his idea. 

“Good,” she repeated, nodding in agreement at this. “Remember the names of anyone who makes an impression, okay? We need to replace you and Morrison next year,” she teased him. Her cousin rolled his eyes. 

“We intend to finish with enough time to attend Slughorn’s party and let you know how bloody boring it’s going to be,” Adolphus pitched in, sounding thoroughly convinced that Slughorn’s get-together was going to be a nightmarish experience.

“See if Slughorn can convince Reese to let me out of here sooner,” she practically begged them and they snickered at her ardent desperation.

“There will be none of that happening!” Madam Reese had evidently been within earshot of her whining. Natalie let loose a long string of swears at this, making the team laugh once more as the Hogwarts healer badgered them all out of the hospital wing. 

The Slytherin captain lay grumbling for a few minutes in silence. Madam Reese watched her like a hawk for a while, ensuring the girl wasn’t going to attempt to leap off the bed and sprint after her team. The healer had made sure to threaten her with the idea of using a spell to restrain her to the bed — the thought of which was so horrifyingly degrading that Natalie had been terrified to even move a muscle for hours after she had been told this. 

Once Reese was satisfied with her behavior, she began bustling around the wing, attending to the few other patients. Natalie grew bored with studying the arches of the ceiling and turned her attention to the pile of candies, chocolates, and cards at the table beside her. She scowled at all the sweets, cautiously reaching over and searching through the pile until finally settling upon a chocolate frog. She munched upon the chocolate, savoring the rich taste on her tongue. But it soon grew foul-tasting, and her stomach churned its anger at her having consumed it. Natalie groaned and tossed the remaining chocolate back onto the bedside table. Just looking at all the sugar-filled treats made nausea bubble within her. Whether it was an effect of the healing potions or the mental angst exhibiting itself in a physical reaction, she did not know. 

Natalie's dull gaze flew towards the hospital wing doors when one creaked open again. The tall figure of the other fifth year Slytherin prefect, Tom Riddle, appeared in the doorway. There were a few books tucked under his arm; he glided down the wing and neared her bed. She watched him with emotionless gray eyes as he came to a stop beside her. 

“Trade?” She spoke up, giving him a doe-eyed stare; she pointed at the pile of sweets on the table, and then at the books he carried. 

Tom Riddle smirked down at her and held the books out. She eagerly reached up with the hand that had not had its wrist snapped and took them. But she could not maintain a grip on all the heavy books with only one hand, and they tumbled down onto the bed beside her, thankfully missing her fragile ribs and on the opposite side of her healing femur. 

“Good job,” Tom commented sarcastically at this. 

Natalie gave him a murderous look. “You handed them to me.” 

“You didn't have to take them.”

“Why would I not?” She snapped at him, shuffling through the books and noting their titles. One was about animagi, another about Legilimency and Occlumency, and the third about advanced Transfiguration. “Interesting selection.”

“I figured you’d like them,” Tom smirked again, causing her to roll her eyes. 

“Can you do me a favor?” She flashed him a cajoling smile, which successfully wiped his smirk away and replaced it with a suspicious frown. 

“I suppose it depends on what it is,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Can you take all that,” she tugged her wand from under the pillow, pointed it at the pile of sweets, and with a swish, they were all wrapped up in a neat little bag. “And give them to the first years? Tell them they’re from me.”

Tom’s posture relaxed, the corners of his lips turned up in a half smirk. “Sure,” he consented to her request, unfolding his arms and picking up the bag.

“Excellent,” she beamed up at him, “aren’t you going to Slughorn’s thing? It’s starting soon.”

“I’m sure Professor Slughorn will understand my tardiness once I inform him I was visiting my fellow prefect and the Quidditch team captain in the hospital wing,” Tom Riddle suavely announced, raising an eyebrow at her as though challenging her to argue his logic.

Natalie snorted, tempted to roll her eyes again; she could flawlessly visualize Slughorn’s reaction to Tom stating this. She wondered if the Potions professor would ever realize he was being hopelessly played by one of his favorite students. 

“Ask him-” she paused, glancing around the hospital wing and noting where Madam Reese was. Confident she was out of range, Natalie attempted to lean forward but was met with a pinch of pain from her sore ribs. With a splutter of swearing, (which had Tom sniggering) she settled on leaning back against the pillows behind her, and lowered her voice another octave. “Ask him if he can convince the tosser over there-” she shot a glare at Madam Reese, “to let me out of here soon. Tell him I'm worried about falling behind in my classes.” 

A mischievous look appeared on Tom’s face at this, one that had her narrowing her eyes at him. “First you want me to siphon off the gifts your friends have so generously given you upon your injury, now you want me to overrule the expert knowledge of Healer Reese by appealing to our head of house?” 

“It sounds more nefarious when you phrase it like that,” she scowled up at him. “But, essentially, yes.” 

“I even took the liberty of delivering entertainment to you during your horrendously tedious stay in the hospital wing,” he gestured to the books at her side. Natalie closed her eyes and tried to contain her laughter, lest her rib cage fracture again. This was the side of Tom Riddle that could terrify even the bravest Gryffindor. Devastatingly eloquent, his eyes were cold with the glacial light of his conviction, and the planes and angles of his face hinted at a lurking danger waiting to take a bite of its prey. But to her, and seemingly, only to her, his lethal expressions and carefully selected words were interpreted to be highly facetious. It was no wonder they got along so well; each found the other to be hilarious. 

“I will write any essays that any professor assigns for you this week,” she promised him, her gray eyes unclouded as she pleaded with him. “Even History of Magic.” 

“You just like to write absolute hogwash and see if Professor Binns notices,” he shook his head at her, but she could see in his eyes he had agreed to the deal. 

“He doesn't,” she grinned wickedly. “Make it sound pretty enough and it gets an O.” 

“Now that I know that, why would I require your services?”

“Because you know I'm a better writer than you,” Natalie smirked at him this time. “And you clearly enjoy my company. Or why would you still be here?” 

“Perhaps I am merely amused by your antics and wish to take advantage of your state in order to strike a bargain which is beneficial to myself,” Tom deadpanned and she finally burst out laughing, though it was short-lived due to her injuries. 

“Okay, Riddle. Deliver the goods, don't bother asking Slughorn, I know it's not going to happen, and let’s see. . . bring me more books on these subjects. In exchange I'll write your essays until I'm out of here.” 

A deliberating look came over him before his lips curled back into that half smirk. “Additionally, I shall deliver you notes from all classes if you accompany me to Hogsmeade this coming weekend.”

Natalie raised an eyebrow at this, then realized it was suitable to her as well; she would not have to go with her Ravenclaw friends, who insisted they drag her along on every trip and bemoan about how they wished they could be one of the happy couples frolicking through the picturesque town. “Agreed, if I can walk by then, that is.” 

“If you can walk by then,” he concurred with a nod, though when his eyes met hers; they both knew that she would be out of the hospital wing well before Madam Reese claimed. He looked exceptionally devious as they silently understood this, then added, “and don't schedule Quidditch practice.”

“Wait, good idea,” Natalie gasped and Tom Riddle sighed, quickly changing the topic as he made to depart.

“Enjoy the books. I will give your regards to Slughorn.” 

“Give him my regrets and anger!” She called after him as he strolled out of the wing. Tom simply glanced back and gave her one last smirk. 

* * *

It was Thursday of that week, and Natalie was growing incredibly bored and horrifyingly distressed. It had been five days since she’d landed in the hospital wing, inundated with potions and spells to heal her ribs and remove the blood that had continued to insidiously seep into her lung. 

She was becoming angry at what felt like a betrayal by her own body, and had begun staring up at the ceiling, trying to will herself into healing. She wasn’t sure if it was working, but whenever she focused internally and envisioned the tear in her lung closing and her ribs mending themselves, she felt a fuzzy warmth swell within her, almost as if she had just swallowed an entire mug of steaming butterbeer in one gulp. 

“Borealis!” the shouting of her name pulled her out of another one of these internal trances that made her insides tingle with bubbling energy. 

“What?” she snapped her eyes open to spot Tom Riddle staring down at her, confusion knitting his brows together. 

“What are you doing?”

“Healing,” she grunted, irritated she had been jerked out of the mental process which she wasn’t even sure was actually working. But it made her feel like she was doing something productive to help her heal.

He glanced around the hospital wing. “I don’t see Madam Reese anywhere.”

“What do you want?” she pulled herself upwards just enough to rest her shoulders against a stack of pillows. (The hospital wing beds did not have nearly enough pillows, so she had conjured three more for herself).

“I’ve come to see if you’ve completed the Transfiguration essay,” he held out two more books to her. “And to give you these.”

“Amazing,” she sighed, tilting her head towards the small table he stood beside. “Your essay is there. As is mine. Yours is enchanted so it looks like your handwriting as usual.” This was the fourth essay she had written for him; he knew the drill by now. 

“Excellent,” he swapped the two books he had brought for the pieces of parchment on the table. “You’ve finished these?” he tapped a finger on the three other books that were also on the table.

“Yes,” she hummed, “did you know that to become an animagus, you have to hold a mandrake leaf under your tongue for an entire month?”

“Sounds difficult,” he was entirely disinterested and Natalie smirked at this. 

“Give me those,” she held out a hand towards the books he had brought today — the table was too far away for her to easily reach, and she didn’t feel like moving to do so. Rolling his eyes, Tom picked the books back up and gave them to her.

“Oh, good, I like the Occlumency and Legilimency books,” delighted, she eagerly opened the first book and began skimming it. “No notes today, then?”

Tom shrugged, monotonously filling her in on the only two classes the fifth year Slytherins had on Thursdays. “Charms was reviewing Summoning Charms. Care of Magical Creatures was about thestrals, which hardly anyone else could see.”

“Else?” she latched onto this single word and stared at him with cold gray eyes. His own charcoal eyes dropped to the floor upon realizing this admittance and the planes of his face hardened. Evidently, he hadn’t meant to let it slip that he could see thestrals. “I think they’re haunting-looking.”

At this, his gaze snapped back up to hers and he stared intensely at her for a long moment. She almost felt as if he was peeking into her soul before she blinked and ended the fierce eye contact. 

“You can see them?” he asked in a low voice.

“Yes,” she replied, now returning to poring over the new books he had brought her. 

The mention of thestrals unsettled her. They reminded her of why she could see them — of the summer. She felt anger slowly beginning to drip in the back of her mind as the voices in her head started snarling at the sudden deluge of memories. Quidditch wasn’t an option right now, so she flipped the book to the first page and feasted her eyes upon the words in a desperate hope they would drown out everything else in her mind. 

“You can go, Riddle.”

He stared at her for a brief moment, because her voice and demeanor had shifted so rapidly. She had become much more cold and focused in mere seconds; there was a sort of determined, unwavering feeling of conviction about her that was palpable. It was almost intimidating, the way her gray eyes glared at the pages of the book, like tempestuous clouds about to break into pounding rain upon a dense tropical forest. This feeling rolled off of her like invisible waves — and he found himself muttering a polite goodbye before turning on heel and speed-walking out of the wing. 

Once the door closed behind him, he shook his head and straightened his robes because he was not sure how he felt about the sheer amount of energetic influence that Natalie Borealis could wield, even over himself. 


	18. Year V: Gryffindor Chivalry

To her delight, Natalie Borealis was released from the hospital wing late on Friday afternoon. Madam Reese reluctantly granted her leave, muttering about how the girl must have “willed herself to heal faster.” 

Nevertheless, the Slytherin captain was given a warning (which Reese knew she would ignore) to return should her injuries flare up. And she was explicitly informed not to get on a broomstick until coming to see Reese in a week. Natalie intended to ignore this as well. 

The healer was well aware the Quidditch-obsessed prefect was not going to take her advice; so she had informed Professor Slughorn that the fifth year was not to set a foot near the Quidditch pitch for her own good. Natalie wasn’t sure how Slughorn intended to enforce this, and didn’t quite care to find out if he had any plans to do so. 

Natalie was annoyed to discover that despite her release, she still possessed a dull ache that was centralized along her right torso, and taking small breaths was still more comfortable than any deeper breathing she had attempted. Talking for extensive periods of time, and at any octave over a casual chat was accompanied by sharp, sometimes stabbing pains along her ribs. It was infuriating. 

It was the class period just before dinner, and her Defense Against the Dark Arts class was nearly over. Natalie opted not to attend the last half hour of the class, seeing as it would be pointless — Merrythought would agree with this logic. 

The most recent books Tom Riddle had brought her were weighing heavily in her bag. She wasn’t entirely sure why he had brought her so many Occlumency and Legilimency books; she had heard of these branches of magic and knew more than the average witch or wizard did about them, but due to her recent reading, her interest had been kindled and she wanted to know all she could about both. And now wished to hone her own Occlumency and Legilimency prowess, seeing them as useful skills to possess. 

The books about animagi and advanced Transfiguration had also piqued her attention, and she had the bud of an idea to consider becoming an animagus, despite how absurd the process was. She was somewhat surprised at how ambitious she had grown during her stint in the hospital wing — without having Quidditch to devote all her time and attention into. 

As she slowly walked through the halls — it was the first time she actually had the chance to walk a distance greater than the length of the hospital wing, thus her pace was slow and cautious — she found herself lost in her thoughts. 

From animagi and Legilimency they quickly reverted back to Quidditch, flying, and tiny golden Snitches. 

The team had been practicing all week; they’d been filling her in on their practice plans everyday. Thankfully, the next game wasn’t until the end of February, so she had plenty of time to get back on the pitch and prepare for their match against Ravenclaw. But, of course, she couldn’t wait to fly through the air with her team again. 

There was, however, the problem of who would succeed Abraxas and Morrison next year. Beater and Chaser were key positions, but also required someone who would have good chemistry with the team. She had her eye on Neil Lament to join as Beater. He came from a strong Quidditch background, despite having been obsessed with her in prior years. Yet that could be useful when it came to team bonding-

“Oh, bloody hell, sorry!” she had, in her internal pondering, rounded a corner and walked straight into someone else. The collision made her tender ribs twinge and she flinched backwards, bending over slightly and clutching at her chest. 

“I’m so sorry!” the offender she had walked into repeated this. Glancing up, she observed the dark curls and concerned blue eyes of Gryffindor prefect, Oberon Talon. 

“It’s alright,” she wheezed, drawing her wand and whispering the spell Madam Reese had taught her, to quickly clear her airways when she needed to take a breath. 

“Oh, Merlin, and you’re injured too,” Talon muttered, he shoved his hands into his robes pockets and looked immeasurably guilty. “Glad to see you out of the hospital wing, but again, my apologies if I may have reversed any-”

“I’m fine,” she waved a hand and returned her wand to her pocket, then gave him a polite smile. “No harm done.”

He took a worried step towards her. “Are you heading to class? I can carry your bag there for you — it looks bloody heavy-”

“No, I’m not going to class,” she hastily said, coughing and grimacing when this pinched at her ribs. Then she gave Talon a blank look. “Aren’t you in my Defense Against the Dark Arts class?”

“Er, yes-”

“Which we have right now?”

“Which you are also not heading to, apparently,” Talon was quick to pick up on the accusing tone and send it straight back at her. 

Natalie allowed her lips to curl into a grin as she gave him a sly look. “Cutting class, Talon? As a prefect, I ought to deduct points from Gryffindor.”

He returned the grin with a twinkle of his blue eyes. “Well, as  _ also  _ a prefect, Borealis,  _ I  _ ought to deduct points from Slytherin.”

“I am just returning from the hospital wing, under Madam Reese’s orders to partake in only rest and relaxation.”

“I’m sure sitting in class falls under that order.”

Natalie folded her arms over her chest, careful not to disturb her injuries. “And what’s your excuse for not being in class, Talon? I expect a good one, with your reputation and all.”

“Ah. . . unfortunately, I am not, er, currently in possession of a good one,” he mumbled, running a hand through his scattered curls and gazing down at her with shameful blue eyes. 

“I see,” she hummed, looking thoroughly unamused. “Well, I’m going to dinner early. I’ll see you at the next prefect’s meeting, Talon.”

“Oh, I was actually going down to dinner, too,” he perked up, “here, I can carry your bag for you, I feel bloody horrible for walking into you.”

“It’s not too heavy,” she shrugged, stepping around him and heading in the direction of the Great Hall. She wasn’t sure why he said he was going to dinner if he was walking in the opposite direction of the Great Hall. But he fell into pace beside her anyway. 

“No, really, I insist — we might be in opposing houses but that doesn’t mean I have to act like an utter savage when dealing with Slytherins. Gryffindor is about chivalry, not just illogical bravery.”

“Alright, then,” she muttered and slipped her bag off her shoulder and allowed Talon to take it. She respected Talon; he embodied the nobler qualities of Gryffindor house and always did so in a classy manner. If carrying her bag would ease his conscience, she would allow him it. 

“So, what was the diagnosis?” he asked after a moment of them walking in a silence which she was comfortable with, but he evidently was not.

“Broken ribs, femur, wrist. . . .”

“Merlin,” he sucked in a breath. “It looked horrible from the stands. My apologies, again, that it was from my house team.”

“Quidditch is Quidditch,” she dismissed this. They were walking rather slow due to these aforementioned injuries, which irritated her. The sooner they got to the Great Hall, the sooner Oberon Talon would leave her alone and she could go back to thinking and strategizing about Quidditch. 

“Yes, well, I’ve always thought it could be at times, quite barbaric.”

“Careful,” she warned him in the context of a joke, but was half serious all the while.

“I didn’t mean any offense,” he hurried to say, “I merely meant to imply that at times the results of Quidditch matches seem, well, violent. Particularly when talented players such as yourself land themselves in the hospital wing for a week.”

“Don’t let Emmett Proudfoot hear you saying that,” she told him, referring to the equally fanatical Gryffindor team captain. 

“Well, it is true,” he said, “you are a talented player. Quite skilled, if I say so myself.”

“Uh, well, thanks, then,” Natalie mumbled; she never knew how to react when someone complimented her Quidditch skills because she could not objectively pull herself out of her own shoes and judge her level of competency. She knew she was good, she just wasn’t sure  _ how  _ good. 

By now they had arrived at the doors of the Great Hall, where the mouth-watering scents of a Hogwarts dinner wafted out into the halls. Classes still being in session for the next few minutes meant the hall was empty. The food appeared on the house tables at the same moment Natalie Borealis and Oberon Talon arrived. 

Delighted that she would not have to wind her way through hordes of students coming and going — and with a full range of seats to pick from, she turned to Talon. “Thanks for carrying my bag down here.”

“Oh, of course, it was the least I could do,” he looked surprised that she wanted to part so soon. Regardless of this, he handed her bag back to her. As he did so, her hand brushed against his — and he froze, blue eyes widening as he stared at her in astonishment. 

“Uh, can I have my bag back?” Natalie asked, not sure why he was looking at her as though she had just cursed him. The strap of the bag was still clutched in his hand, despite her having one hand on it already.

“Oh, uh, sorry, again, here you go,” his words were jumbled but he released the strap and she took it from him. 

“Thanks,” she repeated in monotone, not sure why he was acting so strange. But it didn’t matter. Tomorrow’s Quidditch practice had to be written up. . . .


	19. Year V: Questionable Legilimency

It was a gloomy November day when the Hogwarts population trekked its way to Hogsmeade, shivering in the early winter chill that crept through the streets under the overcast skies.

“-and I still can’t believe that Slughorn actually threatened to cancel practice if I showed up. I don’t understand why I couldn’t just  _ stand _ there.” Natalie Borealis was spilling her grievances to a silent Tom Riddle as they headed down the main street of Hogsmeade, their destination being a warm butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks. Their speed was rather slow, due to Natalie’s persisting shortness of breath.

“Perhaps because everyone knew you would not simply ‘just stand there’,” Tom suggested as a large gaggle of Hufflepuff third years dashed in front of them, cutting the Slytherins off as they headed to the new joke shop named Zonko’s.

Natalie fell silent as the younger students passed directly before them, shrieking and laughing loudly. Her expression was stony as she watched them go by, the voices in her head barking their fury at the loud, obnoxious younger children for almost running right into them. Her ribs twinged just thinking about the possible impact that could have occurred had they been a bit closer. She glanced back at Tom Riddle and the two Slytherin prefects realized they were both reacting the same way to the Hufflepuffs.

They shared a dark chuckle at their equal irritation before crossing the street to enter the Three Broomsticks. It was early, so most students were still doing their rounds at the shops of the town, saving the butterbeer for later.

Growling the sudden rage that had overcome her, induced by her already incapacitated state, the lack of Quidditch, and the recent encounter with the Hufflepuffs, Natalie hurried over to the bar, where the bartender was taking stock of the bar’s supplies. She smashed a small black velvet bag onto the counter, where it clinked heavily, making its contents evident. 

“I’m paying in advance,” she huffed, partly from her lack of breath, partly because of how annoyed she was. The bartender — a rather good-looking young wizard a few years out of Hogwarts — immediately trained his attention on her upon the presentation of so much gold. 

“Give me two butterbeers with plenty of refills, and send two goblets of Firewhiskey over there,” Natalie inclined her head down the bar, where Professors Slughorn and Merrythought were engrossed in a lively conversation about the English national Quidditch team.

The bartender fulfilled her requests instantly, sliding two steaming mugs of butterbeer towards her. She picked them up and handed one off to Tom Riddle, who was staring at her with an expression of inquisitive respect.

“What?” she demanded, moving past him to head towards her preferred table in the corner: the round one that commanded a view of the entire establishment.

“Are you usually inclined to carrying around large amounts of gold?” Tom begged the question, following her with amusement.

“I’ve been drowning in gold since I went to live with my grandmother,” Natalie admitted, sliding into the seat against the wall. Tom chose the one directly on her left. He raised an eyebrow at this, as though inquiring further.

“I went to live with her after my mother died,” she muttered, focusing her squirming gray eyes on the butterbeer before her. The events of the summer were beginning to pool on the edges of her mind, but she was determined to dam them. She hadn’t spoken to anyone about the summer and she was intent on never doing so. “She’s Cassius Malfoy’s widow.”

“I see,” Tom mused over this, the name of the former entrepreneurial maverick was not lost on him. “So, have you picked one?”

“What?” Natalie flashed her eyes up from the butterbeer to stare at him in bewilderment. “Picked one what?”

“Animagus or Legilimency?” the smirk that graced Tom Riddle’s face was entirely appropriate, for Natalie Borealis was so shocked, she had begun choking on a mouthful of rich butterbeer and did not cease until he retrieved his wand and cast a spell.

“H-how,” she began weakly, still coughing. Her ribs ached from the rough movement and she pressed a hand to them, as if to prevent them from moving any further. It was a moment before she had enough air to form words. “You brought me the books. . . .”

Tom’s smirk grew wider as he watched the puzzle pieces neatly fit themselves together in her eyes. He knew her vigorous mind would forbid her from not relentlessly pursuing a task while she lay in the hospital wing, deprived of her usual Quidditch.

“Well?” he pushed, eager to know the results of his plan.

“I want both,” she frankly declared in a hushed voice. He could see the ravenous ambition crashing its way through her stormy eyes before it was soothed by her current commitment. “But I don’t know if I’ll have the time with Quidditch.”

“You have at least two weeks,” he pointed out, yet this seemed to anger her.

“I know!” she groaned, quickly catastrophizing the situation. “Two weeks without Quidditch — what am I going to do? I can’t go that long without being on a broom, I’ll lose all the skills I’ve been honing for  _ months _ !” the thought was horrifying to her — how was she supposed to squash the images that would flash through her head, of her mother’s bloody face and her father’s maniacal expression, if she couldn’t speed through the air and let the wind silence the sounds of her father’s shouting and her mother’s pleading?

“Learn something useful,” Tom Riddle gave her the look he usually wore when she was being overly-dramatic about Quidditch.

Natalie replied with a blank expression she would affect when he said something she did not care for. It let him know she did not ask his opinion nor find it relevant once stated. This was quickly tinted by annoyance and a bit of panic, as her eyes shot across the bar and landed near the doorway.

Tom Riddle followed her gaze to spot the Ravenclaw trio; Sarah Abbott, Claire Griggs, and Elizabeth Putnam, who claimed Natalie Borealis as their friend. It seemed the three had spotted the blonde as soon as her now masked gray eyes slid over them. 

“Nat!” Sarah called her name, crossing the Three Broomsticks to greet the Slytherin. Griggs and Putnam dutifully followed her. “We thought you weren’t coming to Hogsmeade because of your injuries,” Abbott exclaimed, then her vision snapped over to Tom Riddle.

“Wait,” the brunette Ravenclaw blinked at the two Slytherins, before a sly grin appeared on her face. “Are you two on a date?”

“No,” Natalie was quick to dispel this notion, sounding beyond annoyed that Sarah had even mentioned it. The Ravenclaws repeatedly assumed she was in a relationship with whichever of her usual male acquaintances was beside her at the moment. 

“Oh, I wouldn’t have known,” Sarah giggled airily, her words contradicting her tone in such a way that wormed itself into Natalie’s head and made her frown before she dismissed it as irrelevant. “Well, hope I wasn’t interrupting anything. See you around.” And the three moved off to purchase butterbeers.

Natalie stared after them briefly before shaking her head and shrugging off whatever had highlighted Abbott’s tone. 

“They aren’t the brightest,” Tom Riddle dared to remark, causing her gray eyes to flick over and study him. 

“Why do you say that?” she asked, taking a sip of the warm butterbeer.

“Because it’s true,” he had a steely look upon his face. 

“Well, they’re my friends,” she shrugged again, not willing to delve into this topic of conversation. “Why did you ask me to come here with you, anyway?”

“To find out what direction you were heading in based on the books I’ve been delivering to you,” he smirked at her, “evidently, you’ve selected both routes. Though, I won’t say I don’t enjoy your company, particularly when you’re in a cold-hearted mood.”

“When am I in a cold-hearted mood?” she dropped the tankard onto the table and stared at him. 

“Most times,” was the cryptic answer. 

“Slughorn and Merrythought are coming this way,” she informed him, keeping her eyes on his but noting the rotund figure of Professor Slughorn waddling his way towards their table in the back of the pub. “Act charming.”

“As always,” he gave her a smirk before morphing it into a polite smile, then he turned just as Slughorn and Merrythought reached their table.

“Tom! Natalie!” Slughorn boomed, patting his far-reaching belly and giving them a merry smile that quivered the tips of his caramel-colored mustache. “Lovely to see you two here. Natalie, I daresay you’re looking quite well. That really was a rather nasty fall you took last week — you’ve been greatly missed in both mine and Professor Merrythought’s class.”

“I will second that, Horace,” Merrythought gave Natalie a wink, which she returned with a grin. 

“Well, I’ve good news for you both then: Madam Reese says I can return to classes this Monday,” Natalie told them with a laugh. 

“Wonderful!” Slughorn clapped his hands together. “Absolutely wonderful!”

“Unfortunately, this clearance does not apply to Quidditch,” Natalie grimaced. “Don’t worry, though, Professor, as Slytherin’s team has been practicing all this while. We’ll be prepared to win the Cup this year.”

“I’ve no doubt about that, Natalie,” Slughorn smiled down at her, “though rest and recuperation are a requirement for all athletes! It’s best not to risk any further injuries by returning to play too soon. I see Tom here has successfully kept you entertained during your recovery. I do love to see Slytherins supporting each other.”

“Yes, he has,” Natalie said, glancing over at Tom Riddle, who was wearing a stoic mask. But there was something twinkling within his eyes, especially as he smiled at Slughorn.

“It’s quite easy to keep Miss Borealis entertained, Professor,” Tom declared, then flashed his charcoal eyes at her. “It’s just a matter of knowing what books she likes to read.”

Merrythought had fondness written all over her face. They were her favorite students and the four of them knew it. “The pursuit of knowledge is admirable in any capacity, of course.” 

“I completely agree, Professor,” Tom gave Merrythought a deferential nod. 

“Say, Natalie, m’dear, was it you who sent us the Firewhiskey? Adam said it was sent by a pretty blonde,” Slughorn waved a hand in the direction of the bartender. 

“It was me, Professor,” Natalie smiled demurely, “hope you enjoyed it.”

“Oh, immensely so, immensely!” Slughorn exclaimed with delight. “In fact, it reminded me of all the times I spent at the Leaky with your grandfather, Cassius Malfoy. Great man, he was. Great man. Such a shame he passed all those years ago.”

“Yes, I’ve heard stories,” she replied, “unfortunately, I never had the chance to meet him.” 

“Ah, that is most unfortunate. You do remind me of him quite a lot, doesn’t she, Galatea?” 

“Yes, she does bear a striking resemblance,” Merrythought scrutinized Natalie with her keen gaze. “In both demeanor and looks. The eyes in particular.” 

“Well, Merlin, Cassius Malfoy’s eyes could convince even the most sensible wizard to strike any business deal he desired,” Slughorn reminisced with what was almost a giggle. “I daresay Miss Borealis’ eyes can convince any wizard to do her bidding. I believe the team can attest to that — and you too, Tom?”

“Yes, Professor,” Tom Riddle curled his lips up into a slight smirk. “They are. . . quite fascinating.” 

“I’m not sure I inherited the business aspect of that,” Natalie commented, shooting Tom a look. He ignored it, keeping his attention on the professors. 

“Oh, the charm is still there, of course,” Slughorn chuckled with a dismissive gesture. “Captivating, really.”

“We must be off, Horace,” Merrythought jumped in, “I have papers that require my attention. I must say I am excited to see what both Mr. Riddle and Miss Borealis have written for my essay on the history of the usage of the Imperius Curse.” She sent the two Slytherins a smile, which they automatically returned. 

“Entirely understandable!” Slughorn let out a jovial laugh. “Enjoy your day here, then, Tom, Natalie. And thank you again for the Firewhiskey. And do give Domitia my regards.” 

“I will, Professor,” Natalie nodded and the two professors slowly made their way out of the pub. Once they had departed, Natalie snapped her gaze over to Tom. “You’re his plan to prevent me from playing Quidditch these two weeks.”

Tom simply raised his eyebrows at this accusation. “I have no idea what you’re referring to.”

“You know what I mean,” her tone was cutting. “You bringing me books — asking me to come here today — you conspired with Slughorn and Reese to distract me from running back onto the Quidditch pitch.” 

Tom said nothing. He merely lifted his butterbeer and took a long sip — his dark eyes staring directly into her swirling gray ones all the while. 

“Only question is why,” Natalie demanded, curling her hands around her own butterbeer and clutching it tightly. She refused to break eye contact with him. He wasn’t backing down either. So they continued; glaring into each other’s eyes because they wanted nothing more than to know what the other was thinking, what was going on behind the mask of silver coated words and groomed manners and proper etiquette. It wasn’t long until they received an answer. 

As Natalie stared into Tom’s charcoal eyes, she was suddenly met with an eruption of vivid images and strong feelings within her mind. She saw faces: they were gaunt, terrified, awestruck — and there was one in particular that stood out the most, one that looked very much like Tom, but lined with age. Then there was a shabby old house, a ring, then a mansion, a family, flashes of blinding green light, motionless bodies. The emotions were near overwhelming — unbridled rage, nauseating disgust and revulsion, inexorable conviction, paralyzing fear, but also a strong underlying pride.

While Tom was gazing into Natalie’s thunderous eyes, he was hit with an equal deluge of images and overpowering emotions. He heard a woman screaming, crying, pleading, choking; a man shouting in anger, threatening and ranting. He saw trees passing by as if he was speeding through a forest. He saw a bubbling potion, broken bottles, and blank eyes. And he felt rippling waves of horror, raw fear, and a brimming loathing. But on top of these, an overriding and intransigent determination.

The next thing either of them knew, they were leaning on the table, gasping for breath and trying to understand what had just happened. 

“What. . . what was that,” Natalie coughed, clutching at her ribs. They had grown warm and were constricted with pain. “I saw. . .”

“What did you see?” Tom suddenly lunged forward and grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look back into his eyes. They were now black and closed. A dawning of realization then broke over Natalie. She became rigid, understanding what had happened and what she had seen. But if she had seen that — what had he seen?

“What did  _ you  _ see?” Natalie turned it on him, her voice harsh and imperative. She wasn’t sure how they had both managed to wield some sort of rudimentary Legilimency attack on each other, but was terrified that it had happened all the same. 

“I think — I saw your parents,” Tom began, despite looking annoyed that she hadn’t answered him first. At his words, she froze, gray eyes icing over and muscles growing taut. His hands released her shoulders as she then moved — slipping from his grasp and out of the booth. She didn’t look back at him, focused on getting out of the pub. 

She hadn’t moved that fast in a while — ignoring her shallow breathing and the vice wrapping around her ribs as she practically sprinted outside and into the blistery November wind. Natalie tried to take a deep breath to get some much-needed fresh air into her lungs, but was caught on the sharp pinch of pain that wracked her chest. She choked and coughed before spinning on heel and marching as quickly as she could out of Hogsmeade, deciding she didn’t need to breathe at the moment. 

She made it to just outside the village, reaching one of the lesser used roads before dizziness overtook her. She stumbled over to the tree trunk she always gave a fond pat to and sank down against it, falling onto her knees and clutching the rough wood with both hands. 

Closing her eyes, she tried to focus on her breathing — though it was more like hyperventilation by now. Short bursts of air were rapidly being sucked in and out of her lungs as she tried to clear away the lightheaded feeling and usher out the memories and voices that Tom’s Legilimency attack had conjured back to the surface. She didn’t understand why this had happened — how had they managed to perform Legilimency on each other like that? Sure, they both knew the basics and theory of it — but to actually break into each other’s mind? Via what had just been an intense staring contest? That was unheard of. 

Natalie suddenly became aware of her breathing slowing and the pain in her chest lessening. She eagerly drew in languorous breaths of air, relishing in the taste of it. She felt the tingling of a magical spell, and knew that Tom had overtaken her hasty flight. When she opened her eyes, he was casually sitting on the old tree stump she was leaning against, twiddling his wand between his hands and watching her with curious black eyes. 

Seeing him — and knowing that he may have glimpsed what had happened over the summer; the murder of her mother by her father, and then her revenge upon her father — sent a thrill of panic through her again. She surged up to her feet, teetered for a moment, before turning and stamping back along the road, heading up towards the castle. 

She didn’t know what to do, so she fled. She wanted — needed — to get to the Quidditch pitch. To fly through the air and-

“Natalie!” She was stopped by the harsh demand of her name, and by Tom grabbing onto her sleeve and spinning her about to face him. 

“What?” She gasped from the sudden movement. Looking up into his charcoal eyes, they were awhirl like never before. She found she couldn’t look away.

“What did you see?” He repeated, taking hold of both her hands in his and clutching them together so she had nowhere to go. 

Natalie stared at him in silence for a moment, allowing the scenes to replay within her mind again. If she had seen what she thought she saw. . . 

“You killed your father. And his family. And your uncle,” she finally muttered, watching his eyes and seeing in them that she was correct in what she had gathered from the images. She brushed a finger against the ring that she could feel on his hand. “You’re wearing your uncle’s ring. And you’re now the last living descendant of Salazar Slytherin.” 

Tom was silent as he looked into her eyes. After a moment, he said, “you killed your father, too.” 

Natalie broke the eye contact, wanting to study anything other than his piercing eyes. 

“He killed your mother,” Tom continued speaking what he had seen in her mind. “Why?” 

Natalie’s gaze snapped back to his. He evidently hadn’t seen her father’s hatred for the wizarding world after the death of his brother. She wasn’t sure she wanted to tell him. 

“Why did you kill your father?” She turned the conversation on him now. 

Tom hesitated, clutching her hands a little tighter in his. “He was a muggle. He abandoned my mother before she gave birth to me. And now I bear his horrid name. Answer my question.”

“Your father left your mother? Why?” 

Tom stared down at her. He wondered if she knew that his contact with her skin was sending sparks and pulses of a warm, fiery energy through him. It invigorated him; the feeling was intoxicating, and it made him want to clutch her hands even tighter to obtain more of it. It also made him feel, deep down within the very core of his magical self, that he could tell her whatever he wanted to tell her — and she would not speak a word of it to another soul. 

“She had him under a love potion. Once she stopped giving it to him, he left.” 

“Oh,” Natalie blinked, gray eyes clouding over. “That’s. . . terrible.”

“Why did your father kill your mother?” Tom persisted in knowing this answer. 

Natalie shivered, her gray eyes were locked on his and her hands still clenched within his own. The November chill suddenly seemed a lot colder as the wind batted and tugged at their loose robes and cloaks. “It’s a long story,” she mumbled, then dropped her gaze to stare down at their bare palms. 

“Tell it,” he insisted, squeezing her hands tighter in his. 

“Fine,” she snapped; when her eyes flicked back up to his, they were the same color as the overcast sky above them. Decisively formed and metallic, but heavy with whatever was about rain down. And indeed, rain had begun to trickle upon the grounds as words began firing themselves from her mouth. 

“My father was a muggle, too. His brother was killed in a German bombing raid in London. He blamed my mother for his and his family’s death because she refused to use magic in plain sight to save them. He abused her for weeks before finally killing her in his rage.”

“So you killed him,” Tom whispered it but she heard him nonetheless. 

“I gave him justice,” Natalie retorted, wrenching her hands from his and turning on heel to head back up to the castle. She did not feel as terrified as she thought she would upon saying this aloud. Perhaps because it was spoken to Tom Riddle. She knew her secret ended with him. Knowing he had a similar secret was a sort of twisted relief — and they both had dirt on the other now. 

The rain quickly turned from a shower to a downpour. She procured a charm above her to repel the water and keep herself dry. Tom was quick to follow her and cast his own charm. 

“My father died long before I slipped him a potion. He was killed by his hatred and ignorance.”

“I assume no one else knows this,” Tom remarked as they passed through the gates that led up to the castle. The Quidditch pitch was on their right and Natalie paused to longingly gaze at it. Sure, it was raining, but she could still fly a few laps-

“No one else knows?” Tom repeated, jolting her from her daydream of flying.

“Uh, no, no one else,” she muttered, still staring over at the pitch. She could just make out the outlines of the hoops through the murky rain. She hardly noticed as Tom snatched her hand up again and nearly dragged her up the path towards the castle.

“I assume no one knows  _ this _ ,” she rubbed the ring that she could feel on his hand to refer to the murder of his own family, and this time, it was he who paused.

“No,” he said shortly before continuing walking. His hand tightened around hers as if he could feel her desire to sprint towards the Quidditch pitch. 

Natalie was silent as she felt the smooth surface of the ring. It was a curious little object — and it certainly felt magical. But she would ask him about it some other time.

“Are we gonna talk about how we just broke into each other’s minds,” she murmured once they reached the entrance of the castle. They were still clutching at the other’s hand as if to anchor themselves in reality. 

Tom merely grunted. “Perhaps once we figure out how it happened.”


	20. Year V: Pursuit of Knowledge

Natalie Borealis found herself knocking on Professor Merrythought’s office door late in the evening the next day. 

“Enter!” 

She opened the door and stepped into the spacious office. It was well-lit, and decorated with pictures of talented and renowned witches and wizards. It was the most desired office in all of Hogwarts. Long windows stretched along one wall, giving a fabulous view of the grounds and letting in warm light when the sun rose in the east each morning. A bookshelf ran along the other wall, chock full of famous and informational titles. Merrythought was at her desk, two stacks of parchment on either side of her, a red feather quill in her hand.

“Miss Borealis, what can I do for you today?” Merrythought gave her a smile as she entered.

“I was wondering if you could answer a question for me, that I can’t seem to find an answer for in any books.” She had spent most of the day scouring the entire library for anything on Legilimency that would answer why she and Tom Riddle had been able to peer into the other’s mind like they had yesterday. Everything she could dig up on the topic seemed to state that one needed to be highly skilled and highly trained in Legilimency to perform it without a wand or uttering the spell. 

“Go ahead then,” Merrythought laid down her quill and settled back in her seat. She gestured to the chairs in front of her desk, and Natalie slid into one of these. 

“I was wondering what you knew about Legilimency, Professor,” she began in a quiet voice. “I’ve already read up on the basics, and have been learning as much as I can.”

Merrythought brought her fingers together in a pensive look. Her blue eyes were sparkling. “Legilimency is a very advanced form of magic. Though it does not surprise me that you’ve stumbled upon it and have taken an interest in it. Especially with a mind like yours.”

Natalie wasn’t entirely sure what she meant by this. She hadn’t come here to be praised, just to learn. “Yes, but doesn’t it take years of practice and experience to master it?”

“That is the general belief, yes,” Merrythought said slowly. “But there have been cases of skilled witches or wizards being born with a talent for such magic.”

“Would it be possible to accidentally perform Legilimency on someone?” Natalie asked, shifting uncomfortably in her chair. She now regretted coming to Merrythought — she would rather keep this incident to herself, she did not want to have to explain to her Defense professor that she and Tom Riddle had accidentally broken into each other’s minds and viewed the crimes they had both committed. She was sure that would not end well.

“Certainly,” Merrythought replied, “power and talent go unnoticed without intent and direction. If a witch or wizard were naturally gifted with Legilimency magic, then they may be able to glimpse another’s thoughts or emotions either without meaning to, or may do so if they desired to, without being aware that they are using Legilimency.”

“I see,” Natalie mused upon this. She knew that was as close to an answer as she would get without revealing too much. 

“I will say, if you don’t mind,” Merrythought smiled at her, “I am delighted that you are putting these weeks to use and taking it upon yourself to improve your magical education. While your passion for Quidditch is admirable, you are no less talented in the classroom.”

“Thank you, Professor,” Natalie returned the smile. “I do miss it, though.”

“Of course you do,” her smile grew warm and understanding. “We all miss what we love. . . I will, without a doubt, miss teaching here. It’s always a pleasure to meet and instruct the next generation.”

Natalie’s eyes widened at this tidbit. “You mean — you’re retiring?”

“Yes,” Merrythought solemnly nodded, “within the next few years I will step down from my position here. I believe it is time to end this chapter of my life.”

“Not before I graduate, though, right?” she asked anxiously. She adored Merrythought’s classes, and was loathe to see her leave. 

Merrythought laughed, “we’ll see, Natalie. I might stick around to see you win the Quidditch cup twice more after this year.”

Natalie grinned at this, “I wouldn’t want you to miss that.”

* * *

“Borealis,” Tom Riddle’s cold drone met Natalie as she rounded the corner, returning to the Slytherin common room from Merrythought’s office. She nearly walked right into him. He stopped her from doing this by placing a hand on her shoulder. As he did so, he was astonished to experience the same buzzing feeling of energy he had felt prior, when coming in contact with her bare skin. 

“Riddle,” she replied, staring at him. He was carrying a transparent box of what looked like crystallized pineapple. “What is it?”

“Professor Slughorn requested our presence in his office within the hour; nothing formal, just some butterbeer and Firewhiskey with a few of us.”

“Who’s a few of us?”

“You and myself. Lestrange, Rosier, Nott, Avery, Dolohov.”

“Okay,” Natalie said, “are you going now?”

“Yes,” his hand was still on her shoulder.

“Wait for me, then,” she commanded, then ducked around him and hastened to the entrance of the common room. 

Tom waited in the corridor outside for her to reappear. He rubbed the ring on his finger with his thumb and pondered over the feeling of raw energy he experienced via physical contact with Natalie Borealis. He knew he wasn’t the only one who had experienced it. He was fairly sure she had no idea it occurred, but he hadn’t the slightest clue why it did. Nothing he had read gave him any inkling of what it might be. It certainly felt magical, but was not a spell or charm of any sort. But it seemed to be growing stronger — especially if he could feel it through her robes now. What was most perplexing — and even frightening — was that he longed to feel it again. He longed to simply clasp her hand in his and absorb that bubbling, warm feeling of magical energy that pulsed off of her. It was addicting, intoxicating, alluring. . . 

“Let’s go,” she broke his trance by appearing beside him. She had changed robes and was now wrapped in a thick, dark gray cloak the same color as her eyes. Her hair in a loose braid, and soft fur boots were on her feet. She looked slightly sleepy and was blinking like she was distracted by whatever was on her racing mind now. 

They walked in silence to Slughorn’s office. Natalie seemed to slowly float over the ground like a calm cumulus cloud on a fair day, while Tom steadily walked beside her, clutching the pineapple and both rerunning his plan of how he could ask Professor Slughorn the question he was desperate to know, and how he could come into contact with Natalie to experience that fiery energy again.

“Did you know Merrythought is retiring?” Natalie asked as they neared the office.

“No,” he blinked, intrigued at this piece of information. “Is she?”

“I think so. She said within the next few years, she would,” she yawned slightly.

“Interesting,” he muttered, before knocking on the door to the office and pulling it open upon Slughorn’s call from inside. He held it open for Natalie and stepped in after her. 

Avery, Lestrange, Dolohov, Nott, and Rosier had already arrived and were sitting on comfortable plush couches in a semicircle around Professor Slughorn. The Potions professor was reclining in a velvet winged armchair chair with his feet resting on a matching velvet footstool. A glass of wine was in his hand, and the others clutched mugs of warm butterbeer. 

“Ah, Tom, m’boy! And lovely Natalie!” Slughorn exclaimed as they walked in. 

“Hello, Professor,” they said, almost in unison.

Lestrange and Rosier excitedly called out upon sighting their captain. “Cap!” 

“Hi, boys,” she said in a sleepy murmur, and Adolphus Lestrange guffawed.

“Aw, are we keeping you up, princess?”

“No, I’m just tired, Lestrange,” she teased, “being tired is a real thing.”

“Come in! Settle in!” Slughorn beckoned them to join the circle.

“Never heard of you being tired,” Lestrange whispered as he and Rosier scrambled to make room for her on the couch. Tom Riddle stayed hot on her heels, claiming the seat on Natalie’s left, forcing Rosier to move over more, which in turn caused Nott to have to relocate to the other couch with Dolohov and Avery. 

“To my great regret, I’m still healing,” Natalie muttered back to him as she took a seat on the couch. She had no qualms with making herself as relaxed as possible, settling back on the plush velvet and arranging her cloak about her like a blanket. She even took the liberty of drawing up her legs in their soft slipper-like boots and crossing them on the couch as well. She didn’t seem to care that she encroached into the personal space of both Tom and Adolphus — neither of them were about to complain about this.

“That is so unfortunate,” Lestrange commented, using her crossed knee as a placeholder for his mug of butterbeer once she settled in. 

Tom watched him closely as he did this, and spotted, for a moment, a slight look of surprise and a twitch of his arm as he felt the same stimulating energy that was now felt upon any physical contact with Natalie Borealis. Lestrange seemed to get over the initial shock, however, and Tom noticed the other boy quickly realized that it both came from Natalie, and how addicting it was to experience. His mug of butterbeer remained on its makeshift placeholder, with the base of his palm securely resting against the part of the cloak covering her right knee. 

“What will it be, Tom, Natalie — butterbeer, mead, Firewhiskey, wine?”

“Butterbeer is fine, Professor,” Natalie said and Tom repeated this request. 

Instantly, two filled mugs of steaming butterbeer floated towards them. Tom took several sips before taking up Lestrange’s action and resting his mug upon Natalie’s other knee. He felt the same spark of energy upon doing so, and thus hungrily allowed the base of his own palm to lay upon her cloak-covered knee. He found that he was nauseated by the idea of someone else experiencing the addicting vitality that she gave off. He shot a look at Lestrange out of the corner of his eye and was angered by the fact that he seemed to be enjoying the flow of exuberance as much as himself. 

Natalie simply gave him a questioning look at his action, but allowed it nonetheless. Tom then turned his attention to the potions professor. 

“I brought you something, sir,” he said, and allowed the box of crystallized pineapple to float towards Slughorn. 

Professor Slughorn chuckled with delight at the appearance of the pineapple, his honey blond mustache wiggling as he did so. He wagged a finger at Tom as if to chastise him. “Tom, Tom, you shouldn't have.” But he accepted the box and it was immediately opened to allow his thick fingers to peruse it. 

“I heard it’s your favorite, Professor,” Tom politely smiled at Slughorn. He shifted his butterbeer to his left hand now, and allowed his right to remain lightly resting on Natalie’s knee. 

The current of power he was deriving from the contact was exhilarating and inspiring. He had the confidence to wheedle whatever answers he needed out of Slughorn tonight, and then some. He was still annoyed to note that Lestrange also experienced the same thrill, but he felt assured enough from Natalie’s energy to dictate that only he would be able to benefit from her. An idea formed within his mind and he went to immediately enact it. 

Without too much movement or attracting any attention, he pinched Natalie’s knee with enough effort to cause her to jerk her position on the couch in a reflexive response to the sudden pain. As she moved, she jostled Lestrange’s mug — which still rested on her other knee — with enough force to spill some of the butterbeer down on her cloak. This distracted her from turning to snap at Tom, and she instead barked at Lestrange. 

“Good job, Adolphus,” she sarcastically quipped as the warm butterbeer seeped into the fur of her cloak. Rosier and the others snickered at the ruthless tone of her voice and the look of horror on Lestrange’s face.

“Sorry, Cap!” he apologized, jumping to his feet and hurrying to pull out his wand and cast a cleaning and drying spell over her cloak and the spilled butterbeer. 

“No harm done to our precious captain, I hope,” Slughorn said as Lestrange returned to his seat on Natalie’s right. This time, Tom gleefully noted, he held his butterbeer himself and avoided any incidental contact with the captain. 

“It’s only Gryffindor who harms the Captain,” Rosier joked and the group laughed, though Tom was busy savoring the fact that it was now only himself who had a hand on Natalie Borealis and was subsequently experiencing the rush of energy.

“Now, now,” Slughorn pretended to scold the group, “there’s no need to bring any house rivalry in here. We all know which house is the best.”

“Ravenclaw,” Natalie deadpanned and everyone stared at her, unsure if she was serious or not, as her voice had been so grave. She finally gave them all a look as if disappointed they had not picked up on her facetiousness. Tom, however, briefly drummed his fingers over her knee as if to let her know that he had gotten the joke. She seemed to understand this message, and sent him an appreciative smirk.

Slughorn burst into uncontrollable chuckling at Natalie’s facial expression towards them all, and then understood the amusement, and the rest of them followed suit. “Ah, Natalie, m’dear, always one for the dry humor,” Slughorn nearly had tears coming out of his eyes. 

“I thought you were serious for a moment there, Cap,” Adolphus snorted and Rosier scoffed, “git” at him. Lestrange shot Rosier a withering glare which was deflected with a smirk. 

“No inner team fighting, boys,” Natalie reminded them with raised eyebrows. 

“We’re just goofing off,” Lestrange told her, adopting puppy-dog eyes. 

“I wasn’t,” Rosier remarked, causing Lestrange to snap his head over to glare at him again. “I’m joking, relax.”

Slughorn wagged a finger at them all but still chuckled every now and then. “Now, boys, calm down.” 

“Sir,” Tom jumped to get his attention. “Is it true Professor Merrythought is retiring?” as he asked, he drummed his fingers over Natalie’s knee again, both relishing in the stream of fizzling power the contact gave him and to reference her prior comment to him. 

“Tom, Tom, if I knew I couldn’t tell you,” Slughorn winked at him, “I must say, I’d like to know where you get your information, boy, more knowledgeable than half the staff, you are.”

Tom merely smiled at this, he knew Natalie had a smirk on her face when he lightly squeezed her knee. Dolohov, Avery, and Nott laughed at Slughorn’s comment and sent him looks that were full of admiration. He ignored them, too focused on both his conversation with Slughorn and the girl beside him. 

“What with your uncanny ability to know things you shouldn't, and your careful flattery of the people who matter — thank you for the pineapple, by the way, you’re quite right, it is my favorite — I confidently expect you to rise to Minister of Magic within twenty years. Fifteen, if you keep sending me pineapple, I have excellent contacts at the Ministry.”

Tom smiled again as the other boys laughed once more. He kept his hand steadily on Natalie’s knee — it almost felt as if he could send thoughts and energy her way, just as she was, albeit unknowingly, sending energy to him.

“I don’t know if politics would suit me, sir,” he said, tapping a single finger against her knee. “I don’t have the right kind of background, for one thing.”

He felt Natalie’s smirk and cast a glance at Dolohov and Avery. They were the only ones who knew of his ancestry. 

“Nonsense! Couldn’t be plainer you come from decent Wizarding stock, abilities like yours. No, you’ll go far, Tom, I’ve never been wrong about a student yet,” Slughorn announced with confidence before the golden clock on his desk chimed the hour, and the professor glanced about in surprise. “Good gracious, is it that time already? You’d all better get going, or we’ll all be in trouble. Lestrange, I want your essay in by tomorrow or it’s detention. Same goes for you, Avery.”

Slowly, they all began rising and filing out of the room. Tom gave Natalie’s knee one last pat before removing his hand as if giving her permission to depart. 

She gave him a sharp look at this, as if understanding his thoughts, but he refused to meet her eyes. He twirled the ring on his finger as the others left — Lestrange and Rosier beckoning their captain out with them. While the stream of power had been cut off with the loss of contact, he still felt as though he were brimming with raw energy and upbeat confidence. He would get his answers from Slughorn tonight. 


	21. Year V: Collective Agreement

Eric Dawson and Adolphus Lestrange entered the Slytherin common room one December night, snickering and elbowing each other in the ribs as they normally did. They had just returned from dinner, the Quidditch team always ate dinner together after practices. After dinner, they either went their separate ways (because someone had head boy duties, or prefect duties, or an essay to finish) or settled in the common room to lounge and chat. 

“Lestrange, Dawson, have you seen your Captain?” Tom Riddle was settled in his favorite armchair beside the fireplace in the common room — a decorated green and silver Christmas tree was on the other side of his chair due to the season. He was holding an essay. It was due tomorrow morning and he anxiously needed Natalie Borealis to give it a look. He had also become an addict for the uplifting energy she emitted, and used every and any excuse to achieve some sort of physical contact with her without seeming too obvious. 

Whatever it was that emanated from her, it was growing stronger each day. And clearly, he wasn’t the only one who knew about it and benefited from it. The Quidditch team had a near monopoly on her. 

“She’s with the Ravenclaws,” Dawson replied as he punched Lestrange’s shoulder.

“Yeah, they stole her away from us for dessert,” Adolphus was clearly still upset about this. Tom knew he also craved whatever energy Natalie gave off. He assumed the rest of the team had to have at least experienced it, but did not understand it. 

“Do you know when she’ll return?” 

“Probably soon,” Lestrange and Dawson took up seats on one of the couches near Tom. Jonathan Shaw and Giles Morrison were seated here, each too focused on their own homework to pay attention to the conversation. 

Evan Rosier, Lloyd Avery, Antonin Dolohov, and Zacharias Nott were also gathered in a sort of orbit around Tom’s armchair. He’d grown used to this, and allowed it to happen. Like the Quidditch team revolved around their captain, slowly, members of the Slytherin house were beginning to revolve around him as well. He made no attempt to quicken or disrupt this process, simply allowed whoever was willing to fall into this revolution to do so. He made sure to include them in simple things to make them feel like they were needed and involved in something; conversations, study groups, hangouts. 

Giles Morrison proved to be listening in anyway, when his head flicked up to spot the blonde hair of the captain. “Here she is now.” 

“Hi, Cap!” several different voices called out, drawing the attention of the entire common room to her. 

“Hey,” she said, glancing briefly about. There weren’t many Slytherins in the common room at this hour. Most were the fifth years, then the Black twins, Callidora and Cassiopeia, who were in a corner, snickering about Merlin knows what. Quinn Bulstrode and Pamela Selwyn were across the room, shooting flirtatious glances at the group of boys on the couches. Most were ignored, but Nott and Rosier would occasionally return a wink. Melania Crouch and Abraxas Malfoy had disappeared a while ago, and were probably strolling the corridors together. 

“Riddle was looking for you,” Lestrange informed her immediately.

“Yes, I was,” Tom smoothly jumped in. “I’ve an essay.”

“Give it,” was her response and she twirled across the room to take the parchment. Her ribs had healed completely, and she was back to her usual spry, nimble self. 

“Oh, actually, I have an essay that needs to be read, too, Cap,” Dawson announced, and then Lestrange gasped.

“Is it the History of Magic essay? Can you please read mine too, Cap, I’ll buy you a butterbeer, I’ve no bloody idea what I’m doing and I don’t want Binns-”

Natalie held up a hand and stopped him. She looked around at the cluster of fifth year Slytherins. “Who else needs their essay read?”

Dawson, Lestrange, Rosier, and Nott all shot their hands up. Avery then timidly raised his own, saying, “I just need it quickly proofreaded. . .”

Natalie laughed at this, amusement lightening her gray eyes. She settled down onto the floor of the common room and flicked her wand to pull the glass table in between the couches towards her. Neatly crossing her legs, she summoned a quill and inkpot from her dormitory. Once they came zooming into her hands, her eyes darted around the room. 

“Okay, Avery first.”

Lloyd Avery looked delighted she had called his name before anyone else, quickly moving to hand over his parchment. Binns’ essay had to be at least two feet in length and was about the Giant Wars of the late eighteenth century. Obviously, no one had paid attention in that class. 

Tom watched as the others lined up to give her their essays. His eyes narrowed as Dawson, Lestrange, and Rosier all simply  _ had  _ to hand their essays directly over to her themselves — making sure their hand brushed against hers as they did so. Nott and Avery did not seem privy to the energy flow which could be attained through this contact. 

As he watched their eyes sparkle with the glee the contact could cause, a kernel of anger was birthed within him. Again, the idea of another deriving any such satisfaction from the bubbling energy around Natalie Borealis was nauseating. It was almost a personal offense against himself. 

After all, they were nothing but frivolous teenagers who obtained an inkling of pleasure from this. Their enjoyment of it, was, no doubt, largely due to the fact that they were too afraid to pursue any other forms of pleasure with the Quidditch captain. So they grasped at this like mad March hares, and did not dedicate an ounce of intellectual deliberation as to why she may possess such a quality. 

It was he, himself, who was dedicated to determining its deeper cause and qualities. He thought this was rather fitting; of those Natalie surrounded herself with, he was the sole individual who was her intellectual and academic equal. It was he who possessed both similar and complementary mental processes and capabilities as she. And evidently, he was the lone member of the Hogwarts population who could see and understand the depth of her ambitions, the potential of her drive, and the value of whatever dynamic energy she exuded.

He wasn’t sure how long he had sat there, dwelling over his thoughts, oblivious to his surroundings, until that lively zing of energy shot through his own arm. Natalie had finished the others essays, and had tapped his arm to get his attention.

“I’ll read yours now,” she said, trying to pry the parchment out of what he hadn’t even realized had become an iron-grip. 

“Yes,” was all he managed to say as he released the parchment; his mind had begun buzzing at the slight contact with her and he craved more. 

“Where’s my cousin?” Abraxas Malfoy had returned to the common room, Melania Crouch trailing after him. His gray eyes roved through the assortment of fifth year Slytherins before they spotted Natalie, sitting on the floor before the table, in between the couches where her teammates and classmates sat, and Tom Riddle, almost looking as if he were presiding over them all, in his usual armchair. 

“Right here,” half of the group, including Natalie herself replied.

“Oberon Talon was asking about you,” Abraxas informed her, coming to stand behind the couch where Morrison, Shaw, Avery, and Nott were sprawled out. 

Natalie’s quill paused in its perusal. “Why?”

“Not entirely sure, but he’s exceptionally eager to speak to you,” Abraxas recounted, “I met him on the way back here. We were discussing Head Boy requirements — apparently he desires the badge — but our conversation came to you. He’s outside waiting. I told him I would ask you to go speak to him.”

“Why?” she repeated. Tom couldn’t see her face, as she was sitting directly in front of him, but he was sure that she wore a look of utter bewilderment. “What does he want?”

“I’m not certain, but he does seem rather smitten with you,” Abraxas smirked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively at his cousin.

Natalie groaned, “bloody hell, Abraxas, what did you do?”

“I’ve done nothing!” the seventh year seemed offended. “It is not my fault if Gryffindor boys fall in love with you.”

She and the others got a laugh out of this, but Tom had a different speculation as to why Oberon Talon might suddenly be so interested in Natalie Borealis. 

“I guess I’ll go see what he wants,” Natalie grumbled, rising to her feet. “This is good, just edit the conclusion,” she handed the essay back to Tom, who made sure his hand touched her fingers as he took it back. He was met with a short burst of that energy — before his anger returned. 

He allowed it to fester quietly as he looked over her suggestions. They were, as always, a marked improvement to his essay. She was perpetually meeting and even exceeding his own standards for academic quality. 

Natalie had left the room, and the energy within it seemed to mellow. Soft murmuring began between those left in the common room. The Quidditch team grouped themselves around one couch and were talking amongst themselves. The Black twins vanished up to the girls dorms, and Crouch, Selwyn, and Bulstrode all retired as well. Until it was just the group of upper class boys on the couches near the fireplace. 

Tom monitored their conversations with one ear; Dolohov was giving Nott and Avery suggestions on the Giant Wars essay, having written the same essay just last year. The discussion between the Quidditch team; Malfoy, Shaw, Morrison, Lestrange, Rosier, and Dawson, however, piqued his interest.

“Rosier felt it too, when he gave her his essay, I swear, I’m not making this up. Dawson felt it during the sorting feast — we were making fun of him, but then I-” Lestrange’s voice dropped an octave lower and Tom couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. 

“I think you’re being ludicrous. You just fancy her. None of you are allowed to fancy my cousin,” came Malfoy’s strong opinion. He then announced this to the rest of them sitting in the common room. “That goes for you lot over there, too.”

“But Talon’s allowed to fancy her?” Lestrange crossed his arms and huffed, “how’s that fair?”

“Because I know she doesn’t fancy him back,” Abraxas scoffed. “My cousin can’t see past the end of her broomstick.”

“Ask Riddle about it!” Dawson suddenly exclaimed, drawing everyone’s attention to him. His green eyes were alive with conviction. “Riddle has to know about it, too.”

“Know about what?” Tom asked in a monotone voice. He knew exactly what Dawson was referring to, but wanted to hear him say it.

“Er, well, we’re trying to figure that out — but if you’ve ever, er, touched Natalie’s hand, or shoulder, or anything — have you felt this sort of. . . I dunno — energy?”

“Like bloody lightning or something,” Lestrange added, running a hand through his dark hair and shivering as he recalled the feeling. 

Tom stared at them, assessing whether or not joining this conversation would be beneficial to him. He decided it would be. “Yes, I have. . . also experienced it.”

“Don’t tell me you fancy her, too,” Abraxas groaned, rolling his gray eyes that were almost copies of Natalie’s but not quite.

“You don’t  _ have  _ to fancy her to feel it!” Lestrange insisted, “ _ you _ try it. Give her a hug when she comes back in or something. I’m telling you, it’s real.”

“Very well, but only to prove you all wrong,” Abraxas smirked with superiority, “Giles, Jonathan, get in on this. I want more evidence to smite these gits with.”

No sooner had they agreed to do so did the common room entrance open and Natalie returned. Quickly, everyone looked as if they had not been discussing the Captain in her absence. 

“What did he want?” Abraxas casually asked.

“He was being bloody weird,” she shrugged, “asked me to go to Hogsmeade with him this weekend. That was it. It didn’t make any sense.”

“Well, did you agree?”

“No one else has asked me to go with them yet, so I told him I would,” she said nonchalantly — and each member of the Quidditch team looked as if they were about to lose their mind. 

“You’re going on a date!?” Lestrange bellowed, his blue eyes raging, “with a Gryffindor?!”

Natalie gave him a look that questioned his intelligence. “It’s not a date. People ask me to go to Hogsmeade with them all the time.”

“Yeah — those are dates!”

“No, they’re not,” Natalie narrowed her eyes. “Why would you just assume Talon is asking me on a date?”

“Because you’re bloody fit!” Dawson slapped a hand to his forehead, unable to believe how socially dimwitted the Captain could be when her mind was only on Quidditch. “Every guy in the school wants to take you to Hogsmeade!”

“Uh, okay,” Natalie reddened, shifting uncomfortably from this sort of attention. It was evident she wasn’t sure what to do with that information.

“I, for one, am excited that my cousin is entertaining the affections of a Gryffindor prefect, who has ambitions to be Head Boy,” Abraxas said silkily, moving over towards Natalie. “Look at my little cousin, all grown up.” his voice quickly crescendoed into a high-pitched tease as he swooped in for the preplanned hug. 

Seeing this, Morrison and Shaw hastily followed him. The three of them took turns, wrapping her in a sarcastic hug that ruffled her hair, patted her on the back, and punched her shoulder. 

Tom studied them intently, noting the look on their faces when they experienced the same jolt and current that everyone else had. 

Once Natalie swatted them away and ducked under their reach, she muttered a short goodnight, reminded them that it was most certainly  _ not _ a date, and disappeared into the girls’ dormitories. 

When she was gone, everyone turned to Abraxas. His face had turned pale once his cousin had departed. 

“Bloody hell,” he breathed, shaking his head. “I felt it. . . It’s almost like the description of the Imperius Curse being placed upon you — warm and tingly and carefree. But. . . more direct and intense. And Merlin, I feel. . . I want to run for Minister of Magic!”

Giles Morrison looked stunned beyond belief. His words were slow and deliberate. “I — I think I know what I want to do after I graduate. . .”

“And what’s that?” Jonathan Shaw asked, himself appearing no less shocked. 

“Work at Gringotts,” Morrison explained in an amazed voice. 

“When did you all realize this?” Abraxas looked between Tom Riddle and the members of the Quidditch team. 

“Earlier this year,” Dawson told him. “At the feast was my first time feeling it. Since then, it seems we’ve all experienced it at some point.”

“What  _ is  _ it?” Lestrange spoke what was on everyone’s mind.

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Abraxas’ eyes were nearly glazed with thought, “but it almost feels like magic.”

“It can’t be any spell or charm,” Morrison glanced around. “There isn’t a known spell or charm that does something like this.”

“That is known,” Tom added this into the conversation. He’d been doing his own research for weeks, looking for an explanation. He had not found one. He was nearing the point of asking a professor. Slughorn had proved helpful about the horcruxes. . . .

“What reason would my cousin have for casting some sort of spell or charm upon herself? Especially one that has an effect like that,” Abraxas asked with a frown. “All she wants to do is play Quidditch.” 

“Then maybe it’s not some spell she cast,” Dawson looked intrigued. “Maybe it’s just. . . her.” Roster and Lestrange snickered at this, and Dawson sent them a glare. 

“As romantic as that sounds, Dawson may be right,” Morrison cleared his throat, silencing the sniggers. “It might just be her.” 

“She obviously has no idea,” Jonathan Shaw looked about at each of them. “Do we tell her?” 

“No,” Rosier, Dawson, Lestrange, and Tom himself all stated this opinion. 

“Imagine how that would go,” Rosier snorted, “hey, princess, just wanted to let you know that whenever someone touches you, they get shocked with this sort of magical power that makes them feel all warm and fuzzy but also want to conquer the world.” 

“She’d laugh in your face,” Dawson summarized, and Lestrange, Morrison, and Rosier all nodded their agreement to this. 

“Alright, well, as her cousin, and the eldest here — now that we are in collective agreement that this. . . phenomenon exists,” Abraxas pulled his robes about him and crossed his arms over his chest. “No one is to speak of this to her — at all. Nor mention this to anyone else. Particularly seeing as none of us understand it.” He looked over at Avery, Nott, and Dolohov, who had not experienced the energetic feeling. “That applies to you three, too. This is to remain a secret between-” he swiftly counted the number of them, “the ten of us.”

“What about Talon?” Lestrange asked, glancing around and looking irritated. “He has to know about it.”

“Let’s hope he doesn’t get too curious,” Rosier muttered, and Dawson furiously nodded in agreement, running a hand through his sandy blond hair. The idea of someone outside of their group knowing what was now their little secret was clearly agitating to all of them. 

“He’s going to,” Tom jumped in, meeting the eyes of everyone present. He figured he may as well hop in on this. It was known information now — and this group of boys wasn’t disappearing from Natalie Borealis’ side anytime soon. And it seemed that they might now have a common enemy. “Oberon Talon’s one of the best of our year. He won’t let something this interesting pass him by.”

“That’s why he’s taking her to Hogsmeade and none of us are,” Dawson said in a low voice. 

“Jealous, much?” Lestrange teased him, mischief glinting in his blue eyes.

“You bloody are too, and you know it!” Eric Dawson grew defensive, giving Adolphus Lestrange a glare. Lestrange narrowed his eyes at this and bared his teeth as if to send back a biting response.

“Enough!” Abraxas raised his voice. “Stop bickering. You both know that my cousin has a circle of people she prefers, and that you’re included in it. Most all of us here are. Talon is not. Not yet, at least. So he won’t be asking questions and poking around as of right now.”

“So, should we prevent that from happening?” Jonathan Shaw cautiously uttered this, appearing rather hesitant. Tom studied the group closely, watching as they moved to attempt to guard Natalie and whatever energy she possessed from anyone outside of them. It was fascinating — and something that could come in quite useful, indeed. 

“I doubt we’ll need to,” Abraxas responded. “My cousin only has one thing on her mind, and it’s Quidditch. If Talon makes himself any more important than he is now, it will only be because he aggressively pursued such a course by himself, with no help from Natalie.” 

“Let’s see how Hogsmeade goes,” Morrison suggested, then smirked. “If we know anything about her, I’m sure the Captain is going to come back with a very entertaining story.”


	22. Year V: Wait, This is a Date?

Natalie Borealis was departing the Great Hall to head to the entrance hall to meet Oberon Talon when he jumped up from the Gryffindor table and hastened over to meet her. He had waited until she was not surrounded by her usual gathering of Slytherins, (most of them intimidated him, but he would never admit this). 

“Natalie, hello,” she turned at the sound of her name. Sometimes, hearing her full name felt odd; she was so accustomed to a nickname of some sort. 

“Oh, hi,” she said, taken by surprise at his sudden appearance at the Great Hall doors. 

“Ready to go?” he asked, running a hand through his thick black curls and looking somewhat nervous.

“Yeah,” she replied without emotion. Natalie had woken up irritated at how last night’s Quidditch practice had gone. It being late December, it had snowed heavily all day, and finally turned into a blizzard during their practice time. She, of course, wanted to continue practicing — but all six other players on the team collectively overruled her captaincy and physically dragged her off the field. All while she was furiously protesting and insisting that it was just a little snow. Apparently, they did not want to practice in a blinding gale. But they had only gotten to practice for ten minutes — so this morning she was restless and annoyed. And itching to get in a good workout. 

“Great,” Talon nearly had to sprint to keep up after her — for she had barely paused when she greeted him and had continued out of the hall.

“I have to pick up some new quills,” she informed him as they exited out of the front doors and into the fresh air outside. Taking a deep breath, she inhaled the crisp air that remained after yesterday’s storm. A coat of sparkling snow covered the grounds, turning them into a gorgeous winter wonderland. She smiled at the white-frosted trees and grounds — not realizing that Oberon Talon was staring at how the luminous snow reflected in her gray eyes, making them gleam as sharp as the snow did in the bright morning sunlight. He found it more fascinating than the grounds. 

“Okay,” he agreed; not having made any plans of what specifically to do in Hogsmeade, he was glad she had an itinerary. 

They walked in silence for a bit; Natalie was busy admiring the grounds, Talon was busy admiring her. After a while, Oberon found the lack of conversation uncomfortable, and moved to break the silence.

“Er, how was Quidditch practice last night?” Unknowingly, Oberon Talon asked the one thing which Natalie was not pleased about.

“Miserable,” she snapped, and Talon regretted bringing up the topic immediately. “The team had to drag me off the field because they thought the snow was too bloody bad to fly in.”

“Well, the storm was rather intense last night,” he had nothing else to say and was afraid of angering her further. 

“So?” she posed this question, and he had no answer, so he dropped back into the silence which she seemed to have little problem with. 

They didn’t speak again until Natalie was browsing through a collection of eagle feather quills in Scrivenshaft’s Quill Shop in Hogsmeade. Talon was shadowing her, unsure of what to say or do.

“Do you think this will last through an O.W.L. exam?” she asked his opinion, turning to show him the brown and red feather quill she was admiring. It was definitely sleek and smart looking, and would probably last through all their O.W.L. exams. 

“Uh, yes, completely,” he responded, blinking in confusion as to why she even bothered asking him this. She seemed acquainted enough with quill culture to already know the answer to a question like that. 

“Okay,” she hummed and picked up two more that were just like it. “Let’s go.”

He trailed after her as she paid for the quills and exited the shop. Wondering all the while how someone who was so driven and passionate when it came to the Quidditch field could also be so taciturn. It did not feel like a shy silence, however, it simply seemed like she was content with not speaking to him, and was instead, wrapped up with whatever was churning through her mind. There was something, he knew; he could see it in her maelstrom gray eyes — her mind was alive and racing. 

“Butterbeer?” she asked once they returned to the main Hogsmeade street.

“Yes!” he agreed, delighted at the possibility of engaging her in a longer conversation in the Three Broomsticks. 

She merely grinned and flounced off in the direction of the pub, Talon relying on his long legs to keep up with her agile, speedy pace. 

The Three Broomsticks was bustling with a crowd of students. Natalie wrinkled her nose upon sighting all the third years, but was relieved to see that her favorite table was vacant. 

“Can you grab that table,” she pointed it out to him through the crowd, “and I’ll go get butterbeer.”

“Uh, okay,” he blinked at this command — that was what it was — a command. But it wasn’t an overbearing, snide order. It was the swift order of someone who had read the situation and understood the best logistical course to achieve the desired goal. Oberon Talon found he wasn’t surprised that this strategy of leadership came so naturally to the Slytherin team captain — she was captain for a reason. He found he had no problem obeying this order, in fact, he was both excited and relieved to carry it out. 

Natalie returned to the table Talon had reserved a few minutes later. Placing the tankard of hot butterbeer in front of him, she slid into her usual seat against the wall. (She silently thanked Merlin he had not sat in her preferred seat.)

“I had planned to buy that for you,” he nodded at her own tankard after taking a sip of his own.

“Why?” she asked him point blank, then shrugged it off, an answer to her own question within her eyes. “I don’t mind paying, I always buy the drinks for whoever I come here with.”

“Oh,” he realized she did not understand the context of his sentence, and thought he was referring to just spending the gold. Generally, half the Hogwarts student population coming from wealthy pureblood families and the other half wearing hand-me-down robes usually made finances and the expenditure of gold a sensitive topic. “Do you come here with others a lot?”

“Everytime I go to Hogsmeade,” she casually waved a hand at this. 

“Who do you usually come here with?”

“Some of my Ravenclaw friends; Abbott, Putnam, Griggs. Or my team; my cousin, Abraxas, Morrison, Shaw, Lestrange, Dawson, Rosier. Or Riddle,” she smiled as she listed off the names, and Oberon found himself touched by how much fondness was in her voice. But he couldn’t help but latch onto the last name she mentioned.

“You and Riddle seem close,” he commented, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. He and Riddle were already competing for top of their class, and he knew, when the time came, that it would come down to them in the selection for Head Boy of their year. He wondered if he would have to also compete with Riddle for Natalie’s time and attention. 

“Yeah, I guess,” she shrugged again, but her eyes were drawn away towards somewhere else in the pub. Talon turned to spot the three Ravenclaws she had just mentioned.

“Nat!” Sarah Abbott greeted her as they made a beeline for her table upon noticing her. “So this is why you couldn’t come here with us today, huh?” she, Elizabeth Putnam, and Claire Griggs gave Oberon Talon a searching look. 

“Talon asked me to come first,” Natalie told them simply.

Putnam raised a dark eyebrow, her face a mask. The way she was looking at Talon made him feel slightly uncomfortable. “Oh, did he?” 

“Yeah,” Natalie said, “I can meet you three for lunch, later, if you want.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Sarah smirked, “wouldn’t want to deprive Mr. Talon here of your presence.”

“Okay,” Natalie looked slightly muddled, as if she had heard something else within Abbott’s voice. It was quickly shrugged off. 

“See you later, then,” Putnam smiled, though it seemed rather forced, and the three Ravenclaws headed over to the bar.

Natalie gazed after them for a moment before shaking her head and looking back at Talon. “Anyway, why did you ask me to come here with you?”

He stared at her, and for a moment wondered how someone so intelligent could simultaneously be so clueless. He decided not to mince his words too much. “I asked you here. . . on a date.”

“Oh,” was all she said, staring at him blankly. “That makes sense now.”

He didn’t know what else to say. “Yeah.” 

“Why?” she very bluntly asked him this. 

“What do you mean, ‘why’?” his eyebrows furrowed as he gazed at her. Her gray eyes were swimming with thoughts, but he could hardly begin to interpret any of them.

“Why’d you ask me to come here with you as a date,” she clarified, taking another sip of butterbeer. He stared as only her captivating eyes peered at him over the heavy tankard. Steam from the hot drink wafted upwards, blending into their melodious gray color. Her blonde hair was loose, and it encircled her face like a soft halo of pale waves. 

“Well, er, I’ve, er, been thinking about you ever since I ran into you that day,” whatever was making her eyes pool like deep puddles on a rainy day made him want to tell her anything he pleased. “I, er, think you’re quite — ah, beautiful, if I do say so myself.”

“Okay,” she replied, again sounding emotionless. 

He blinked, not sure what else she expected him to say.

“Is that it?” she asked, tilting her head slightly to one side as she scrutinized him.

“Er, I think so.”

“Interesting,” Natalie said, though her facial expression did not match the word.

“Is. . . that all you’re going to say?”

It looked like someone had dropped a pebble into the depths of her eyes. They rippled with silvery, symmetrical waves. “I think it’s odd that you asked me here on a date just because you think I’m pretty.”

“Why did you think I asked you here?”

“I didn’t know — that’s why I asked. I figured you might just still be feeling guilty about walking into me while I was injured.”

“Well, why  _ wouldn’t  _ I ask you here on a date?”

“The way I see it, you should know the person before you ask them on a date. Else you’re liable to have a horrible time.”

“We have gone to school together for five years.”

Natalie gave him a steely look at this statement. “Sure, but you don’t really know me, Talon. Nor do I really know you.”

“Well. . . I would be. . . willing to get to know you.” 

She let out a small snigger at this, closing her shimmering eyes and covering her mouth with a hand for a moment. “Sorry,” she opened her eyes and grinned at him. “The way you said that made it sound rather. . . ominous.”

“I didn’t mean it to,” he hastened to explain. 

“Hold on,” she stopped him by raising a hand before getting to her feet. “I’m going to get more butterbeer — do you want another?”

“Uh, yes,” he said, trying to recover his composure. He went to stand up as well, but Natalie stretched out her hand and he instead found himself giving his tankard to her. As he did so, her fingers brushed against his — and it was like a bolt of lightning shot up his arm and into his chest, creating a warm, bubbling sensation within him. His mood improved tremendously and he suddenly found himself full of determination. He would unlock whatever was swimming behind Natalie Borealis’ gray eyes. 

Oberon didn’t know how long he sat there, staring across the table at the empty seat that Natalie was sitting in. Whatever had happened when her hand touched his was astounding. It couldn’t have been a spell — her wand was nowhere in sight. And it didn’t seem as if she had done it on purpose.

“Here,” came her voice and a full tankard of butterbeer. 

“Thanks,” he said automatically, reaching out to accept it. This time, he deliberately brushed his fingers against hers — and experienced the exact same feeling: of thrilling energy filling him. It was incredibly stimulating, and made his entire mind feel alive and focused. Once she settled back in her own seat, he found himself wanting to feel it again. 

“What, uh, was that?” he ventured to ask this, because he was bewildered at whatever it was. When it happened last time, after he had carried her bag to the Great Hall, he passed it off as just being his imagination. But now he had experienced it twice more. 

“Butterbeer?” she raised an eyebrow at him, nodding at the tankards and confused about what he was referring to.

“No, I know it’s butterbeer,” he shook his head, “but when you took it from my hand and then gave it back to me — it was like. . . lightning struck me, or a spell hit me or something.”

Natalie gave him the same look she gave Lestrange and Dawson when she wanted them to stop fooling around during Quidditch practice. 

“I know it sounds odd,” he continued, “but I really did feel something, when your hand touched mine.”

She snorted, nearly choking on a mouthful of butterbeer. “Okay, Talon. Don’t get flirty, I just told you — you don’t know me.”

“I’m not attempting to flirt, it was a serious question,” Oberon insisted, but he was now realizing how his words must have sounded to her. 

“Sure,” her sarcasm was brutal. She took another sip of butterbeer before setting it down and standing up again. “I actually told the team that we were going to have a makeup practice today when nobody has the pitch booked this afternoon. So I’ve got to head back. I’ll see you around, Talon.”  
“Oh, okay, yes, I’ll see you around,” he repeated and slumped into his seat once she vanished. Merlin, he handled that terribly. . . .

  
  


* * *

  
  


Natalie flew around on the pitch, chasing a charmed Snitch, for an hour before the rest of her team appeared to join her at the time she had told them to.

“How was the daaate?” Lestrange teased as she flew down to meet them, gold ball clutched in one hand.

“First of all, I didn’t know it was a date until I asked why he wanted me to go with him and he said it was as a date,” she rolled her eyes. They were a fierce, glacial gray, and the team knew she was in one of her moods. Practice was going to be long and strenuous. “Then I asked why he asked me on a date and he said it was because he thinks I’m pretty. Ridiculous, really.”

“Aw, we think you’re pretty, too,” Adolphus continued the lighthearted taunting. She was going to make them fly laps anyway. “Right, boys?”

“Aye!” Rosier, Morrison, Shaw, and Dawson all seconded this. Abraxas merely rolled his eyes before glaring at them all. 

“Well, anyway, I found out later that Elizabeth is currently in love with Talon — which I didn’t know, but she claims she told me this — and she, Sarah, and Claire saw us there and apparently Elizabeth cried about it after. That was before I knew Talon wanted it to be a date,” she groaned, slapping her hand to her face, but it was the hand that held the Snitch so she ended up whacking her face off the golden ball. Making an angry sound, she flung her arm out and allowed it to fly back up into the air.

“And then,” she spat, and the team quieted immediately, “after they left, Talon started acting bloody weird, and tried to be flirtatious after I just told him that I think you shouldn’t ask someone on a date before you know them — and went off about how he ‘felt something’ when his hand happened to touch mine. It wasn’t even a good line! A load of clever lines to say to a girl and he goes with that?” Natalie was so busy ranting to her team that she missed the look that passed between them all. 

“Well, he is a Gryffindor,” Dawson reminded her, “we don’t like them very much.”

Lestrange, Rosier, and Shaw gave him a high-five, while Morrison facepalmed at how rudimentary this statement sounded. 

“Is this a new strategy, cousin?” Abraxas picked the teasing back up. “Make Gryffindor house fall in love with you? Make it easier to beat them in the next game?”

“It’s gonna be us against them for the Cup,” Morrison tossed this out.

“Exactly!” Natalie ignored Abraxas, focusing instead on Giles’ comment before she glanced around at her team. “So get on your brooms!” 


	23. Year V: Envy Elicited

The Snitch was so close she could practically hear its smooth metallic surface humming as it streaked through the air, slightly more than an arm length ahead of her. 

The tip of her tongue clenched between her teeth, the rusty taste of blood was beginning to fill her mouth, but she only cared about the tiny golden ball in front of her. 

She needed it. She needed to crush its fluttering wings in her hand and raise it in triumph. She needed to snatch it from the sky and win the game — and win the Cup — for her team and for her house. 

A flash of red appeared on the edges of her tunneling vision. She tore her ravenous gray stare away from the flying golden ball for a heartbeat to spot the Gryffindor Seeker, Thaddeus Fawley, pull directly beside her. 

“Not this time, Borealis!” he yelled, slamming his muscled body into her. 

She grunted at the impact but held her broom steady, keeping the Snitch in tantalizingly close sight. At the hit, impassioned rage cut through her like a newly forged steel blade. Her tongue froze as her muscles burned with an aggressive fervor, hunting for an outlet. 

The two Seekers raced down the pitch, neck and neck, jostling and banging the other back and forth, the Snitch luring them onwards, it remained just out of reach. 

Finally, the growing fury within Natalie surged up and burst outwards; she raised an elbow and rammed it with all her might into Fawley’s shoulder. With a howl of pain, he dropped several feet below her, scrambling to stay on his broom as the force of her hit almost toppled him down to the turf below. 

With a cry of victory, Natalie lunged forwards, practically jumping off her broom and wrapping her scrabbling fingers around the cold, hard body of the Snitch. 

As she somersaulted through the air from her leap, the world was a blur of vivid sights and sounds: the green of her Quidditch robes, the translucent wings of the Snitch, her bright blonde braid, the silver of the blanketing clouds above, the roar echoing around the stadium, punctuated by the booing of the Gryffindor crowd, and the rapid pounding of her heart, thumping to its passionate rhythm as it sent her hot blood cascading through her dilated veins. 

When her body realized it was entirely unsupported, over one hundred feet in the air, subject to the inexorable force of gravity, primal instinct washed over her. 

Her empty hand shot out, flailing for anything solid; there was a gut-wrenching moment as she grasped nothing but air before her palm smacked against the smooth wood of the shaft of her broom. Natalie clutched it as eagerly as she held the Snitch. All air in her lungs seemed to dissipate; the audience itself held its collective breath as she hung, one-handed, swaying back and forth through open space. The wind whipped her robes about, attempting to tear her away from her steadfast broomstick. It screamed in her ears, wrapping her in a bubble where the only sound was its shrieking. 

Without thinking, without even breathing, she handed complete control over to her subconscious mind and her muscles took action. Her legs kicked through the air with purpose, swinging with increasing momentum until gaining enough force to flip herself up and over, and land back on her broom. 

Natalie drew in a deep breath before breaking out into a huge grin. Flinging up the hand which held the Snitch, she slowly flew down to the ground, overtaken by euphoria as the appreciative cheering of Slytherin rang through her ears. 

Her ecstasy was quickly shattered when she landed and was confronted with a steaming Thaddeus Fawley. 

“Bloody Slytherin, you can never play clean can you!?” he was loudly accusing her, as the other members of the teams began to land. 

“What are you talking about?” Natalie shot back, incensed that he had ruined her moment. “That was a fair hit!”

“You dislocated my shoulder!” he roared, gesturing wildly to his limp arm hanging in an unnatural position.

“Just because you got injured doesn’t make it illegal!” she shouted, clenching the Snitch even tighter in her fist and flinging her broom down to the ground in a fit of anger. By now, her teammates had gathered around her, shooting the Gryffindor Seeker murderous glares. He, however, was hastily joined by the rest of the Gryffindor team, and the two opposing houses looked ready to declare war right there on the pitch in front of the entire school. 

“Careful, Fawley,” warned Abraxas Malfoy while Adolphus Lestrange tossed out a few choice words at the Gryffindor, offending his inability to admit defeat and his outdated views concerning women.

Thaddeus Fawley ignored the fact that the surrounding Slytherins were ready to bite his head off. He only had eyes for the blonde girl before him. He wanted to hit her where it would hurt. This was a goddamn war — and all is fair in war. 

“At least my mother didn’t marry a muggle and get herself killed!”

“Too far!” Abraxas barked and as if waiting for this cue, every Slytherin had their wands out and aimed at the Gryffindor. His own teammates reacted in the same fashion. 

The teams ignored the professors sprinting onto the field and began firing spells at each other with no remorse. Natalie herself had dashed forward and tackled Fawley to the ground, muggle style. He screamed in pain upon landing on his injured shoulder.

“How you dare bring my mother into this!” Natalie spat at him, pinning him to the ground and in her blind rage, making sure to apply a tremendous amount of pressure to his hurt arm. 

Spells and jinxes flew overhead, and Natalie was ready to snap Fawley’s neck right then and there — but a loud booming sound surrounded them all, tossing every combatant through the air. They all landed on the hard ground in shock, separated from the other team and prevented from continuing their battle.

Natalie found herself pulled up to her feet by a pair of strong arms and was dragged forcefully off the pitch and towards the locker rooms. The same thing seemed to be happening to her teammates and the Gryffindor team. 

“Your actions were embarrassing for a Slytherin prefect,” the voice of whoever was practically carrying her across the field sounded in her ear and she was whipped out of her enraged vision.

“Riddle?” she seethed, beginning to struggle in her fellow Prefect’s grasp. He had an absurdly tight grip on her. “Sorry I won the game for us? I guess I should have let Fawley catch the Snitch.”

“I mean the brawl you just participated in,” he told her curtly.

“Fawley started it!” she whined like a child, still wriggling in his strong arms. “He brought my mother into it!”

“And you took the bait,” Tom accused her with a snort, but there was a hint of amusement in his voice.

“No, I was trying to teach him a lesson,” she complained as he pulled her into the locker rooms. 

The wings of the Snitch — long forgotten now — were still fluttering between Natalie’s fingers. Her teammates were pushed in after her by the sixth and seventh year Slytherin prefects. Once they were all forced into their locker room, there was a silence as they glanced around at each other. Then they remembered that they had just won the game — and won the Quidditch cup. 

A sudden grin broke onto her face, making her gray eyes shine as silver as the trim on her green robes as her teammates began whooping and hollering in victory. 

This sudden transformation, from fury to ecstasy, stunned Tom Riddle; he released his hold on her as she and her teammates dashed out of the locker room. She was shouting for everyone to follow her through the Captains’ Corridor up to the castle while the rest of the team spread the news: “party in the common room in ten minutes!” 

* * *

The victory party was in full swing in the Slytherin common room an hour after the game had ended. 

A table near the fireplace had been designated to hold the copious amount of prohibited beverages the Slytherins had tucked away, saving them for this exact occurrence. The Snitch Natalie had caught to win the game fluttered its way around the common room. Every so often, a quill or discarded bottle cap was bewitched to try and hit it, but each time it failed. At times Natalie would jump up and snatch it from the air with a burst of explosive, unexpected speed, sending laughter and cheers throughout the common room. 

The Slytherin team was settled comfortably on the couches in the middle of the common room, each clutching a bottle of Firewhiskey. They all still wore their full Quidditch robes and gear — just for the aesthetic. (And they didn’t want to waste time changing when they could be partying). 

Adolphus Lestrange, Eric Dawson, and Evan Rosier took up an entire couch, and had insisted Natalie Borealis sit across their laps. She had obliged them this, especially since none of them were entirely sober.

Her feet were in Rosier’s lap, her head rested on Dawson’s shoulder, with Lestrange in between, tapping his hands and bottle against her shin guards like he was playing the drums. Natalie hummed along to whatever sporadic beat he was hammering out as she continued sipping from her bottle of Firewhiskey. 

Occasionally, one of the three boys would dramatically profess how much they loved her, and she would ruffle their hair with a laugh. 

Abraxas Malfoy was perched on the arm of this same couch, near Natalie’s feet. Melania Crouch was giggling at his side while he tried to both jokingly chastise his team for being so inebriated, (as if he wasn’t) and prevent them from giving any first years Firewhiskey. 

Giles Morrison and Jonathan Shaw were balanced on the back of this same couch — being athletic had its perks — both with their own drinks, recounting to a group of third years, with much exaggeration, how the skirmish on the pitch had gone. At times they would lose their balance and topple over onto their teammates. And a scuffle would ensue that involved a lot of punching, shouting, and sloshing Firewhiskey about before devolving into fond hugging and singing victory songs. 

Lloyd Avery, Zacharias Nott, and Antonin Dolohov sat with Tom Riddle across from the team. 

Nott was speaking to a giggling Pamela Selwyn, who was hanging onto the back of the couch the group was occupying as though she couldn’t believe Nott was blessing her with his attention. 

Avery and Dolohov were trying and failing to initiate a conversation with Quinn Bulstrode and Olive Hornby, who were too busy flashing coquettish looks at Tom Riddle. 

Slytherin’s brilliant prefect paid them no mind, focusing instead on the blonde girl in the middle of the Quidditch team. They were the loudest, most energetic Slytherins in the common room — because they were not just intoxicated on Firewhiskey and victory.

Natalie Borealis was relatively quiet, speaking only when someone congratulated her, to laugh at a joke that was cracked, or to chuckle at one of her teammates’ antics. She ignored the stares Tom Riddle was sending her way. Her mind was still on what Fawley had said on the field. Her mother’s death had changed her, but how it related to her move during the game was incomprehensible. She knew he was merely acting on emotions and in the heat of the moment, but she couldn’t shake off the underlying feeling of discomfort his words had threaded through her. 

With a sudden need for silence, which the boisterous, crowded common room did not provide, Natalie struggled from her teammates’ grasps and agily stepped out of their reach. Muttering a rather uncreative excuse to their sudden complaints at her departure, she picked her way through the party, bringing her Firewhiskey along with her. 

She slipped out of the common room and began to walk down the cool halls of the dungeons, heading towards the kitchens. While the party had no shortage of beverages, it was lacking on proper food. 

Natalie was not even halfway to her destination when she became distinctly aware of someone following her. With a sigh, she stopped short in the hall and turned until the person came into view.

“Riddle,” she snorted as the tall prefect rounded the corner and appeared before her. “Tailing me, I see.”

“Ensuring you don’t continue to shame that badge,” his charcoal eyes flicked to the silver P on her robes, then to the nearly empty bottle of Firewhiskey in her hands.

“I’m not intoxicated,” she informed him, and continued on her way to the kitchens. He smoothly fell into step beside her.

“That sounds like something someone who  _ was  _ intoxicated would say,” he said with dry wit and she snickered under her breath for a moment. Riddle was always funny, she’d give him that. 

“Weren’t you enjoying yourself at the party?” Natalie asked, her tone declaring full well that she knew he was not having any fun in the common room.

“Weren’t you?” Riddle challenged, “after all, I was under the impression that the party was for you.”

“It’s for the team,” she corrected him. “I just caught the Snitch.”

“And won the game,” he pointed out.

“It was a team effort,” her loyalty to the Quidditch team aggressively revealed itself. 

Tom simply glanced down at her as though trying to puzzle out the meaning of her words before shaking his head and falling silent. Natalie shot him a glare as they rounded the last corner to the kitchens. 

Neither prefect expected to stumble upon a group of Ravenclaws just leaving the kitchens as they arrived.

“Well, look who it is,” Sarah Abbott’s voice rang out, a certain nastiness lining it that made Natalie frown. Her stony gray eyes roved over the gaggle of girls before them. Sarah Abbott was joined by Claire Griggs and Elizabeth Putnam, as well as a few younger Ravenclaw girls including Myrtle Warren, Loretta Pearce, Josephine Lynwood, and Charissa Martins. “Out for a midnight stroll with your latest boyfriend?”

Natalie scowled at this. “It’s not even ten o’clock. And I don’t have or have had a boyfriend.”

“Are you drinking?” Elizabeth asked, eyes on the bottle still in Natalie’s hand.

“What! I’m shocked!” Sarah Abbott gasped, “who would have thought Miss Perfect would  _ dare  _ take a sip of Firewhiskey?”

Natalie stared at her friend, stunned at the sheer amount of passive aggression directed towards her. The younger girls giggled to each other at Sarah’s statement.

“What?” Natalie said slowly, trying to gauge the situation she had walked into. Her eyes flicked between each of the Ravenclaws in turn. It didn’t escape her notice that Tom Riddle’s hand had settled into the pocket holding his wand. 

“We just never thought we’d see you consume Firewhiskey,” Putnam explained coolly. Her brown eyes were flashing at the Slytherins. 

“Because of your precious Quidditch rules and whatnot,” Abbott mocked Natalie’s adoration of the sport. “Isn’t drinking Firewhiskey tonight going to affect your performance in the next game, five months from now? And seriously? You couldn’t bother changing out of your Quidditch robes?”

“What?” Natalie stuttered again, thunderstruck by their behavior. Why were they speaking as though she had just murdered their first born children? Was she hallucinating? How much had she drank? “We just won the Cup. . .”

“Abbott,” came Riddle’s calm voice, “what are you and a large group of Ravenclaws doing, wandering the castle at this hour?”

“What are  _ you  _ two doing, wandering the castle at this hour?” Abbott repeated back, a glare etched onto her face at the Slytherin duo.

“Borealis and I happen to be prefects, therefore it is perfectly acceptable for us to be in the halls at this time of night,” Riddle stated with authority, a steely glint appearing in his eyes, making the group of Ravenclaws shuffle nervously for a moment before they regained their stride.

“Oh, of course,” Sarah tittered, “You two are  _ prefects _ . How could I have forgotten that, seeing as you both are just so  _ perfect. _ ”

“What’s the matter, Sarah?” Natalie asked, drawing the Ravenclaws’ attention back to her. If something was up, she could just say it. She didn’t have to stand there with half of Ravenclaw house and speak in such a malevolent tone. 

“Nothing’s the matter with me, Miss Perfect,” Abbott laughed, “you should ask yourself that question.”

“What are you talking about?” Natalie demanded, growing annoyed by her friend. This was ridiculous, what were they doing, verbally attacking her like this in the middle of the hallways right after she had won the Quidditch Cup? She didn’t want to get into a fight right here and now. . . How much Firewhiskey  _ had  _ she consumed?

“Do I need to explain it to you?” Sarah simpered, making the other Ravenclaws snigger to themselves again. “Let’s draw it up, real slow then. Someone help me out in telling Borealis here why we’ve decided we don’t like her.”

“All the boys think you’re the prettiest girl in the school,” Elizabeth Putnam began, as if this was a personal insult to her flawless Mediterranean skin. “Every boy I fall in love with would rather spend time with you. Morrison, Talon, and Riddle, now, too.”

“You’re top of the class, with perfect grades,” Claire Griggs sighed, jealousy evident on her face.

“You can manage your grades and still find time for Quidditch,” Loretta Pearce tossed in, the dark circles under her eyes an indicator of her time management skills.

“You can get a spell right on the first try,” Charissa Martins noted with bitterness.

“And everyone says you’re the best Seeker of the century,” Josephine Lynwood remarked, herself being the Ravenclaw team Seeker.

“You’re a prefect, and the professors love you,” Myrtle Warren squeaked, simply looking delighted she could add her opinion into the growing firestorm against someone who incited so much envy in herself and others. 

“What — no one says that — I don’t-” Natalie fumbled for words, still astonished by everything they had just spewed out at her. She did not know nor had been aware of half of what they had said. 

“Aren’t we your friends?” Sarah Abbott spat the words between her teeth.

“Yes,” Natalie blinked, staring directly at Sarah now, trying to understand what was going on. “So. . . are you. . . mad at me?”

“Your problem, Borealis,” Putnam burst out, “is that you never think about how other people might see you. Always on your broomstick, strolling around the school like you own it. Not thinking about anything or anyone else. You’re blinded by your absurd love for a sport. I don’t know why we put up with you for so long.”

“It’s a little hard to be friends with someone who doesn’t have to put any effort into being so bloody perfect!” Claire piped up, and Elizabeth clapped a hand on her shoulder as though proud of the usually taciturn girl for contributing to ending their friendship with the Slytherin. 

Natalie was utterly flabbergasted, none of this was making any logical sense to her. Were they mad that she loved Quidditch? If they were her friends, wouldn’t they understand that she loved the sport? And how was she “perfect”? Was this some sort of twisted joke? Maybe she wasn’t understanding the situation because of the Firewhiskey. . . 

“Uh, okay, well, what did you want me to do? I don’t understand-”

“You wouldn’t!” Sarah Abbott crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes at Natalie. “You’re incapable of seeing things from someone else’s point of view.”

“Just continue to idiotically pour your time and energy into Quidditch. If I had all your talents, I wouldn’t waste a minute of my life playing a sport,” Putnam finished before Abbott turned to her fellow Ravenclaws. 

“Let’s go.”

Natalie was dumbstruck as the girls marched past her and Tom Riddle. As she passed by, Sarah Abbott made sure to whack her shoulder into the blonde Slytherin, sending Natalie stumbling into Tom, who quickly caught and steadied her. 

The physical force from Sarah Abbott seemed to ignite something within Natalie Borealis. Before the Ravenclaws vanished around the corner, she turned on heel, lightning flashing in her cloudy gray eyes, and she opened her mouth to shout something after them. 

Except there wasn’t anything she could think of to say. She stood there, muscles rigid and staring down the hallway, the bottle of Firewhiskey now limp within her hand. Then silence fell in the hallway, save for Natalie’s heavy breathing at what had just occurred. 

It wasn’t for a few minutes did she remember that Tom Riddle was present and had just witnessed everything as well. Her eyes flew over to see him staring down at her, an unreadable expression gracing his face. Natalie’s cheeks grew a warm shade of red, she rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly as she met his coal eyes.

“Well, that was, uh, interesting. . .”

“That was pathetic,” came his judgemental voice and she flinched at his sudden evaluation. 

“What do you mean?” she muttered, and resumed walking towards the kitchens at a slow pace. 

“Those Ravenclaws, your alleged friends,” he explained, “they’ve been letting their envy brew for at least a year now.”

“Wait, what?” she froze and whipped around to stare at him, eyes blown wide at this piece of information. “What do you mean, for at least a year?”

Tom looked at her as though surprised she was unaware of this. “They’re notorious for gossiping about you behind your back,” he bluntly told her and her jaw dropped. “Spreading rumors and such.”

“What. . .” she breathed, smacking a hand to her forehead in disbelief. 

“You haven’t known?”

“Well. . . I felt like there was something up, but I ignored it. . . because I thought it was stupid. . .”

“It is stupid,” he agreed, “they’re disgustingly envious of you. Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies.”

“You calling me great, Riddle?” she smirked, “is that a compliment?”

“If you would like it to be,” he drawled with a shrug, and continued to stroll down the hallway. She followed him, snickering quietly to herself. “They were right about one thing, however.”

Natalie’s laughter ceased immediately and she shot him a stony look. “I swear to Merlin-”

“About you wasting your talents on Quidditch,” he cut her off with a wave of his hand as they came to a stop outside the portrait of the pear which led to the kitchens.

“I love Quidditch,” she stated with enough conviction that anyone other than Tom Riddle would have dropped the subject.

“If you can do anything you want in this world, why waste your time on a sport?”

“It’s fun. . . I love it. . .” Natalie trailed off so she could tickle the pear and allow it to morph into a door. She had no intention of stating aloud to him that Quidditch was her helpless addiction — relief from her emotional trauma. She was tugging the handle open when Tom Riddle grabbed onto her wrist and stopped her. 

He gave her a stern look, while dreams of the future danced within the depths of his charcoal eyes. “You want your legacy to be catching flying golden balls?”

Natalie heaved a sigh of annoyance. She pulled her wrist from his grip and stepped into the kitchens, mumbling, “well, when you put it that way. . .”


	24. Year V: Myrtle Warren

It was a week after the Quidditch Cup had been won. The victory high that had swept Slytherin house came to a grinding halt with the sudden occurrence of several attacks. 

At random times, members of the student body had been found, paralyzed and petrified, throughout the school. No one knew how or why they were happening, so everyone became a suspect. Suspicion and fear swept the school, though professors tried to hush it up. They didn’t know what was happening either. Everyone had their theories, of course. Ranging from a seventh year having a breakdown to a professor going rogue. 

“It’s gotta be someone in the school,” Adolphus Lestrange was saying on a Saturday morning at breakfast. Half of Slytherin house was gathered about and listening to the group of eleven: Adolphus Lestrange, Evan Rosier, Eric Dawson, Giles Morrison, Jonathan Shaw, Abraxas Malfoy, Natalie Borealis, Tom Riddle, Lloyd Avery, Zacharias Nott, and Antonin Dolohov. They had become the central social group of the house and even the school. But they didn’t seem to know nor care about this. 

“I still think it could be someone entering from Hogsmeade or outside,” Shaw insisted, slapping a hand against the table where he sat between Morrison and Abraxas. 

“What if it’s a ghost?” Dawson suggested but Rosier shot this down. 

“Only ghost with the guts to do something like this is Peeves, and he wouldn’t dare.”

“Whoever they are, they’re terrifying the staff,” Nott added, “Kettleburn nearly jumped into the Black Lake when a thestral appeared behind her in class without warning yesterday.” 

“Surprised you didn’t push her in,” Natalie said, just loud enough for the group of eleven to hear. They laughed aloud at this, making the other Slytherins around them crane their necks and lean in closer to try to hear what had been said. 

The blonde girl (and the only female in the group) was sitting directly in the middle of the eleven, with Tom Riddle on her left, Adolphus Lestrange on her right, and Abraxas Malfoy directly across from her. This had been their usual setup for the past few months. 

“I would not tarnish my honor by pushing a professor into the Black Lake!” Nott protested, though this was met by guffaws and smirks from Dawson, Lestrange, and Rosier. 

The four of them had just snuck a dung bomb into Professor Dumbledore’s office last week. The Transfiguration professor had taken it surprisingly well, and pretended not to know who had done it. But the next class he had with fifth year Slytherins involved them learning how to transfigure dung bombs into flowers. 

“I think it’s the Germans,” Jonathan Shaw announced once more the conspiracy theory he had been trying to convince them of all week. “They’ve still got a war going on with the muggles.” 

“It’s not the bloody Germans, Shaw,” Natalie rolled her eyes. “It’s impossible for muggles to get into Hogwarts.” 

“You never know,” he shrugged, looking mysterious enough for Natalie to shake her head and snicker. 

“I heard it was the Hufflepuffs,” a voice from beside Antonin Dolohov, at the far end of this group piped up. All heads turned to spot the wheedling eyes of Olive Hornby, a third year. She blushed under all this attention, but retained her eager gaze at the group, looking for a bit of recognition from the older Slytherins. 

“It’s not,” Natalie replied, her voice monotone and flat. It put an immediate end to Olive’s attention-seeking. 

“Practice in a half hour, Cap?” Morrison said, and Natalie grinned widely at this. The Cup had been won, but the team still enjoyed heading out onto the pitch to scrimmage or practice their flying. It was a great stress-reliever with their O.W.L.s, N.E.W.T.s, and other final exams approaching. And Natalie needed the sport to quiet her raging mind. With the loss of her Ravenclaw friends, the demons in her head had been given novel strength with which to yell and shriek at her. 

“Aye,” she rose to her feet and the other ten Slytherins did the same. “Anyone interested in heading down to the pitch early?”

Lestrange and Dawson rolled their eyes but chimed in with the rest of the team their agreement of this. They made sure to fondly punch her in the shoulder at this announcement. She playfully swatted their hands away, but not without them both gaining a burst of explosive energy from it. 

* * *

The Quidditch team had finished their informal practice, showered, changed, and was heading back up to the castle via the Captains’ Corridor. They were in a rather cheerful mood, despite the topic of their conversation still being the heinous attacks which had been occurring throughout the school. 

“It  _ is  _ suspicious that all the victims have been muggleborns,” Morrison was saying as they moved along the subterranean tunnel. 

“How’s that suspicious?” Lestrange called back to the seventh year. He and Dawson each had an arm linked through one of Natalie’s, and the three of them were skipping through the tunnel ahead of the others, singing victory songs about Quidditch. They still basked in the glory of winning the Cup a week ago, and the two boys relished in the raw energy that was emanating from Natalie.

“Well, it’s a commonality between everyone who has been attacked,” Morrison explained, “that makes it suspicious.”

“Correlation isn’t causation,” Rosier tossed out as they all came to the wall that led into the castle. 

“Sure, but it’s suspicious nonetheless,” Morrison frowned as they jumped through the wall one by one. (Though Lestrange, Dawson, and Natalie all leapt through together, still singing and skipping.)

By the time they all made it into the castle, the mood of the three upbeat players had drastically changed. Their teammates, Abraxas, Morrison, Shaw, and Rosier stepped into the corridor to find a panting Zacharias Nott before them. He looked panicked and was nearly as white as Abraxas’ own hair.

“What’s going on?” Abraxas stepped forwards, Head Boy mode kicking in as he sensed trouble. The others gathered behind him, growing grave. 

“Riddle — just sent me to find you all,” Nott was still trying to catch his breath. “There was an attack — someone’s been killed.”

“Killed?” Natalie and Abraxas both repeated this. 

“What do you mean, killed?” Natalie demanded, standing beside Abraxas and training her intense gray eyes on Nott. “I thought these attacks weren’t fatal.”

“Apparently this one was,” Nott spread his hands to indicate he wasn’t sure about the details either. “The whole school’s gone bloody mental though. Professors are running all about and confining everyone to their common rooms.”

“So — no dinner?” Dawson muttered, sharing a disappointed look with Lestrange. 

“Not now, Dawson,” Abraxas chastised him, then turned to his cousin. “Get them back to the common room. I’m going to find Dippet and see if he requires my assistance. I’ll keep you updated.”

Natalie nodded at this and Abraxas disappeared down the hallway, robes snapping behind him. 

“Let’s go, you lot,” she ordered, and the remaining members of the team, plus Nott, followed her down the last few corridors and to the common room. 

Upon entering, they found a chaotic scene. It seemed the entire house was awake and chattering about whatever had happened. 

Natalie scanned the room quickly, and identified where the greatest cluster of students were. Olive Hornby was sitting on one of the couches, tears streaming down her face as she sobbingly rambled about something. 

The Quidditch captain picked her way through the crowd in a flash, weaving through the green and black robes until she sank into a crouch just before Hornby. She lightly placed a hand on the third year’s knee to both comfort her and obtain her attention — and the girl whipped her head over to stare at her with enormous hazel eyes that were swimming with tears. 

“Hi,” Natalie murmured, staring directly into Olive’s eyes. It seemed as if the common room fell silent as they looked on — no one had been able to get anything substantial out of Olive as of yet.

“Hi,” Olive whispered back, giving Natalie an odd look. 

“What happened?” the captain quietly asked her.

Olive did not answer for a moment, simply staring back at Natalie for a long time. To the point that Natalie began to feel slightly uneasy at the way Olive was looking at her. Until finally, she spoke. 

“Professor Dippet asked me to go searching for Myrtle Warren, because she was reported missing by Ravenclaw,” she paused to sniff and wipe at her eyes. “I went looking — and found her in one of the girls’ bathrooms. She — she’s dead. . . .”

It was shockingly quiet within the common room as they had all heard these words. 

“Is that all?” Natalie prodded for more information, her hand still on Olive’s knee — she felt it was a comforting gesture that the girl needed to be able to speak at the moment. 

“Yes,” Olive mumbled, drying her eyes again. “I just — saw her body — and then her ghost. . . .”

“Thank you,” Natalie gave her a warm smile before rising and moving away from the couch. It was then that she realized most of Slytherin house was observing her. Ignoring this, she surveyed the crowd and found her eyes locking on the murky gaze of Tom Riddle. The instant their eyes met, he turned and headed out of the common room. Without hesitating, she followed him.

“Tom!” she caught a glimpse of robes whipping around the corner. He did not stop. She hurried after him, but always seemed to remain one hallway behind. 

Frustrated, she attempted to guess at where he was heading, and so decided to take a shortcut through the castle. However, it happened that she ended up on the staircase near the main entrance, running almost headlong into Professor Dumbledore.

“Oh, Merlin, sorry, Professor,” she blurted out as she almost tripped while turning to head down the stairs, just managing to catch herself before she fell into the Transfiguration professor.

“Natalie!” Dumbledore exclaimed, looking surprised to see her. “What are you doing running about the castle at this hour? Not another Quidditch workout, I hope?”

“No, but that does sound like a good idea, Professor,” she grinned at this thought.

Dumbledore smiled at her. “No rest for a dedicated athlete, despite having won the Cup, I see.”

“None,” she agreed with a nod, blonde braid swinging over her shoulder with the movement.

“Your passion is admirable, but it would be wise to return to your common room, especially with recent events. . . Ah, I see another dedicated student is also up and about. What are you doing, wandering around this late, Tom?”

Natalie looked down to spy Tom Riddle standing in the entrance hall. She frowned at him, he looked remarkably deep in thought. Something was running through his head, she could see it in his eyes even from this distance.

“I had to see the Headmaster, sir,” Tom politely replied, he ignored Natalie’s presence for the moment. 

“Well, hurry off to bed, both of you,” Dumbledore shifted his gaze from Tom back to Natalie. She met his piercing blue eyes for a moment and was overcome with a distinct, tingling feeling in the back of her head that made her uncomfortable. Blinking briefly, she broke the eye contact and continued heading down the stairs to join Tom in the entrance hall. 

“Best not to roam the corridors these days. Not since. . .” Dumbledore sighed, then said goodnight and vanished up the stairs and into the castle. 

Without saying a word to acknowledge her, Tom Riddle snatched Natalie’s hand in his and dragged her along with him. 

“What-” she began in protest, but he hushed her with a look and pulled her after him, down into the dungeons and into one of the unused classrooms. It was almost pitch black within the classroom, lit only by the light of the torches in the corridor outside. They cast a dim glow into the room through the door — which Tom had left open just a crack. 

“What’s going on?” she asked after they had stood in silence for a few minutes and she felt it was safe to speak. She wasn’t sure if they were hiding from something or waiting for something. 

“I went to see Dippet,” he informed her in a slow, calm voice. He still clutched her hand in his, and they were standing only inches apart. He was absorbing every drop of power that was flowing off her and into him through the contact. It was exhilarating, and boosted his confidence in what he was planning. 

“There’s talk of closing the school if they can’t find whatever caused the attacks.”

“Closing Hogwarts?” she gasped, her gray eyes grew wide — through the darkness they looked like silver slivers of tiny moons shining upon a vast, black ocean.

“Yes,” he said curtly. 

“That can’t happen.”

“It’s not going to.”

No sooner were these words out of his mouth than did a sound come from outside of the door they hid behind. Quick, heavy footsteps were heard — they passed the door of the classroom and continued down the hallway. 

After a moment, Tom slipped out of the classroom, leading Natalie after him. Her hand squeezed within his, so tightly he was beginning to cut off her circulation. But she was too anxious to find out whatever he was planning to feel the pain. 

Muttering could be heard just ahead of them around the next corner, when Riddle slowed to a halt. Then he let go of his grasp on her hand — and jumped out into the light of the next corridor.

“Evening, Rubeus,” he said in a cold voice. Natalie peered around the corner to spot the huge outline of Rubeus Hagrid crouched over something through an open door. She stayed behind Riddle, not knowing what exactly he was driving at here.

“What yeh doin’ down here, Tom?”

Riddle took a step forwards, though Natalie stayed where she was, leaning against the stone wall now to avoid being spotted. “It’s all over. I’m going to have to turn you in, Rubeus. They’re talking about closing Hogwarts if the attacks don’t stop.”

“No, yeh don’t-”

“I don’t think you meant to kill anyone. But monsters don’t make good pets. I suppose you just let it out for exercise and-”

“It never killed no one!” Hagrid yelled, backing up as Tom moved forward. There was a clicking sound behind the Gryffindor third year, and Natalie frowned. It was coming from a large box within the room Hagrid was in. Her hand slipped into her pocket to feel the comforting wood of her wand. Sensing a possible conflict, she pulled it out and let it lay in her grasp, ready just in case. 

“Come on, Rubeus,” Tom said, “the dead girl’s parents will be here tomorrow. The least Hogwarts can do is make sure that the thing that killed their daughter is slaughtered. . .”

“It wasn’t him! He wouldn’! He never!”

“Stand aside,” Riddle warned, drawing his own wand. His spell filled the hallway with a bright light and the box flew open. 

Natalie almost dropped her wand in shock as a giant, hairy, eight-legged monster with just as many eyes and claw-like pincers erupted from the box. It sprinted towards Riddle, knocking him back against the wall and heading directly towards Natalie. She swallowed back a scream and flattened herself against the wall — it just narrowly missed her, though she felt a breeze as its hairy body brushed past her. It was a horrible feeling that left her skin crawling.

Natalie peered down the dark corridor to watch it scuttle off and vanish. Then she turned back to the commotion that was occurring between Riddle and Hagrid. Apparently, a scuffle had ensued between the two boys. When she leapt around the corner to spot them, Tom Riddle had just rolled to his feet, his lip busted and bleeding, but he was triumphantly holding two wands. One was pointed at Hagrid, preventing him from further fighting. 

“It’s over,” Riddle repeated, and Hagrid seemed to deflate with these words. “And I’ve got a witness.” Their gazes both flicked over to see Natalie, standing there and watching them with icy gray eyes. 

“We’ll see you to Dippet’s office, now, Rubeus.”


	25. Year VI: Summer Ambitions

Natalie Borealis seized the book lying on the silken green bed sheet before her and flung it across the room. Blood pounding in her ears as frustration gripped her with a suffocating chokehold. She was unaware of the heavy book hitting the wall with a loud thud, awaking the cat that was snoozing on the end of her bed. Selene blinked open her blue eyes and hissed at her owner, who ignored the feline. 

Learning Occlumency was absolutely maddening. The book kept repeating the same thing — to clear one’s mind, vacate all emotions and thoughts to prevent an unwanted Legilimency invasion. 

Natalie didn't know how to close her mind; her thoughts were always racing, emotions always lurking just beneath the surface, waiting for a trigger. Any attempt to cleanse her brain only brought repressed memories back: of her parents’ fights and the blank gaze of her father as the life evaporated from his body because of her. 

She had been met with the same failure since summer began at the end of June. It was now almost August, and if anything, it felt like trying to master Occlumency was weakening her mind. What was most infuriating — was that she was supposed to be good at this. A natural, as she had learned. Or at least, she was good at Legilimency. But this somehow didn’t quite translate into Occlumency. She couldn’t see how that made sense, as they were intertwined. 

But she was determined. She had decided a month ago she would teach herself how to defend her mind during the summer. Seeing as she had no assignments to focus on when she was not playing Quidditch, she had to have something else to dedicate her time to. Legilimency was down pat, and an animagus was scheduled for next summer. But Occlumency was taking too long. 

A grumbled sigh heaved past her lips; she rested against the voluminous pillows pushed against the bed’s headboard that supported her back. She crossed her arms, staring blankly at the spot across the room where the book had landed, pages askew on the floor. 

How the bloody hell was she supposed to “close her mind”? What did that even mean? How could one “close” their mind? A mind wasn't a book, as much as the comparison to one liked to be used. Her mind felt like a complex maze, with twisting and spiraling turns, dead ends, and insidious booby traps. If that was what it felt like to her, she was appalled to think what it would seem like to someone else. 

Natalie sighed again. She pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers and scrunched her face up, as though forcing herself to concentrate. It was a little after one in the morning, but she had grown accustomed to staying up late since returning from Hogwarts. 

Her black cat crept up the bed and settled into her lap, despite having been woken up by Natalie’s aggressive actions. Selene rubbed her head against Natalie’s free hand, and she began absentmindedly stroking her. The cat loved to be held or pet by Natalie, she’d sit in her lap for hours and demand the attention.

“How,” Natalie muttered aloud, using the cat as a placeholder for the conversation she was having with herself in her head. “How can I close my mind when the only time I can focus intently on anything is on the Quidditch field. . .”

The words melted away in her mouth as her eyes fell upon the broomstick lovingly hung just beside the door to her closet and her jaw almost unhinged itself clean off her skull. The idea burst into her head like a Quaffle through a hoop, scoring a stunningly clutch goal. 

“Quidditch,” she practically moaned the word. Her head snapped backwards, almost banging off the glossy wooden headboard of the bed, as she flicked her eyes closed. Natalie wasn't aware of the cat streaking out of her lap, as she had unknowingly begun to tightly clutch Selene’s fur in her sudden descent into intense concentration. 

Visualization was easy. That was how she fell asleep the night before a game; by visualizing strategic plays that might occur in the game. She could conjure a Quidditch field within her mind; floating high above the green pitch, the wind whistling through her hair, tossing her blonde braid against the emerald of her robes. The comforting tightness of her arm and shin guards, and the feeling of weightlessness that came with flying on a broom. The muffled shouting of her teammates and the opposing team, carried to her on the swift air currents. The announcer calling out the plays and then the score. The inebriating roaring of the crowd that sent thrilling shivers through her body. And the unparalleled, internal focus she possessed when the only thing that mattered was the golden Snitch. 

It was like retreating to the warm interior of her castle after a chilling venture through foreign lands. Natalie was flooded with a sudden feeling of internal security, as though she had retreated to an isolated island, its borders being tempestuous seas that shipwrecked any potential invader. 

Natalie was so shocked by her mind’s ability to utilize her passion in order to safeguard itself in this way that her eyes flew open and she lost focus in her excitement. She scrambled out of her bed, and dashed across the room to the large writing desk near the bay window that gave her a view of the flawlessly manicured hedges of the mansion’s front lawn. Natalie dug a quill, ink pot, and blank parchment from the top drawer and began hurriedly scribbling a letter out.

* * *

“I hope you have a more well-worded explanation of your letter, seeing as it was hardly legible and feverishly written,” Tom Riddle did not bother to blandly greet the blonde girl he had agreed to meet outside Florean Fortescue’s in Diagon Alley. He rarely did, and she him. They never saw the need for it with the other, seeing as they always had something more important to discuss than “hello, how are you?” 

“I do,” Natalie Borealis raised her flashing gray eyes from the open book beside her half consumed ice cream. “Sit down,” she told him, and he smoothly moved to fold his long legs into the chair opposite her. 

She waited until he was comfortably settled, or as well as he could be, seeing as his eyes kept flicking to observe the people hurrying past the small tables set up outside the ice cream shop in the alley. It was rather early in the morning, and the only other souls enjoying Fortescue’s delectables were a young couple just out of Hogwarts, giggling and feeding each other spoonfuls of multicolored ice cream. 

“Disgusting, I know,” Natalie commented, seeing his eyes rove over the couple sitting a few tables behind her. “That's why I'm not facing them. But anyways, how good have you gotten at Legilimency?” 

Tom Riddle’s charcoal eyes returned to stare at her unwavering gray, then he blinked as though to replay her words in his head. A smile curled onto his lips; she knew he’d been researching and studying the skill ever since their accident in the Three Broomsticks last year. She had been doing the same. “I would say fairly better than average, though I lack proper experiential practice. . .”

“That is how I would describe my Occlumency skills,” a devious smile appeared; she did not have to state her proposition for Tom to spy it boiling within her eyes. 

The side smirk she was accustomed to appeared on his pale face, and he arched an eyebrow, as though to mischievously question her. “State your terms, then, Captain.”

Natalie grinned at the usage of her nickname; Riddle rarely used it, but she found she liked it when he did. “They’re simple: I will allow you to practice Legilimency on me, and I will use it to practice Occlumency. Consequently, I believe we will both end up mastering the two branches.”

“I agree to your terms,” Tom’s eyes flashed his satisfaction. He had considered practicing Legilimency on the younger children at the orphanage, but he would prefer to avoid them at all costs, and was not an avid fan of their crying and screaming. Furthermore, he still needed a wand and to speak the spell to enter someone’s mind, and any magic being performed at the orphanage would be directly linked to himself; he would be damned before he got himself expelled from Hogwarts. Natalie Borealis’ mind was a challenge — and he was more than eager to reap the rewards of grappling with one of the strongest-willed people he knew. 

“Excellent,” Natalie grinned and extended her hand across the table to him. “We have a deal, then, Riddle.”

Tom winced slightly at the usage of the muggle name, which was not lost by Natalie. She tilted her head slightly to the side as Tom took her hand and shook it firmly. 

The same thrill of energy he felt whenever he touched her flashed through his body, amplifying his already giddy state. A vaguely maniacal grin appeared on his face and he briefly forgot that he was supposed to let go of her hand by now. He was busy gazing into her tempestuous eyes and deriving inspiration from her blazing ambitions that swirled like Charybdis in a sea of stormy gray. Her words had sent his mind rampaging about his ancestry; his filthy muggle father who had unfortunately bestowed upon him the dull, ubiquitous name he wore, and his dead mother, of whom the only vestige he possessed was his middle name. 

Natalie had begun laughing as she watched his plans and goals formulate within his dark eyes as he gawked at her, seemingly spellbound. She extricated her hand out of his and her eyes dropped to the ice cream before her. She took a sip, (Fortescue’s butterbeer frappes were her favorite) and looked back up at Tom Riddle. Her actions had snapped him out of his state and his expression was a mixture of embarrassment and amusement, as though she had caught him performing an Unforgivable curse but he knew she wouldn’t say anything about it.

“When do you want to begin?” Tom Riddle asked her, a grin slithering onto his face as she pushed the frappe away, slammed her book shut and tucked it into her bag. 

“Now,” her voice was determined, “right here.”

“In public?” he questioned, glancing around at survey their surroundings. The couple behind her was still lost in their own lovestruck world, while a few shoppers passed by, rushing to and from their destinations. 

“Yes,” she said with an energetic nod, “it’s marvelously ludicrous to think that two Hogwarts students would be practicing highly advanced magic in the middle of Diagon Alley.”

“Yes, it is,” he slowly agreed with her logic.

“That’s why we won’t get caught,” she smirked, pulling her wand from her pocket and innocently placing it on the table. Tom mimicked her actions, setting his own wand on the table before him, though he kept a hand over it. “Just don’t look  _ too  _ obvious about the fact that you’re trying to break into my mind.”

“ _ Obviously _ ,” Tom rolled his eyes at this, a slight sneer in his voice to match the patronizing tone she had affected. His eyes then locked on hers, and his fingers curled around his wand. She began spinning her wand in circles with her thumb and forefinger, keeping her eyes trained on him as he whispered, “ _ legilimens,”  _ under his breath. 

Natalie felt a sudden pounding pressure within her head and then Diagon Alley dissolved around them as both went tumbling into a violent barrage of her memories. 

_ She was kicking a soccer ball around with her laughing father.  _

_ She was listening intently as her mother brewed a bubbling, dancing potion and described the uses of the ingredients. _

_ She was sailing high above the Quidditch pitch, feeling euphoric as the wind whipped through her hair and filled her lungs with glorious joy. _

_ She was trying to keep quiet as she snuck up the stairs, her parents screaming in the kitchen- _

Natalie snapped her eyes shut and she felt Tom’s presence fade from her head. She hadn’t realized her breathing had become heavy and her limbs were trembling from the invasion into her mind. When she opened her eyes, Tom was staring at her hungrily, as though he had been cut off in the middle of reading a riveting novel, and was anxious to continue. 

“You weren’t trying,” he accused her, noting her flustered state.

She shook her head, “I was letting you warm up.”

Tom scoffed at this, giving her a look of disapproval. “You not bothering to try isn’t going to help either of us improve.”

“I know,” she said, blinking to clear her head. “Alright, hold on,” she inhaled deeply, allowing air to fill her lungs, then she exhaled, and a wave of calm rinsed away her agitation. A gleeful smile erupted onto her face as her mind placed itself in the middle of a Quidditch game, awash with the sights, sounds, and scents she associated with the sport. 

“Okay, I’m ready.”

“Do you intend to use your wand?” he asked, bewildered as to why she still casually spun her wand on the table before them, clearly not planning on using it, despite the fact that beginner Occlumency required it.

“No, I want to try without it,” she informed him, a sly grin twisting her lips. 

Tom Riddle stared at her, not sure whether to be impressed with her confidence or to believe she was arrogantly stupid. Without bothering to acknowledge this statement, he muttered the Legilimency spell again. And he was met by a whirling tempest of gray clouds that battered him away from her mind almost instantaneously.

“How?!” Tom had been tossed backwards into his chair, rubbing his forehead from the pinging headache her wall of storm clouds had given him. It was like running directly into a raging twister of buffering wind, rain, and clouds.

Natalie Borealis looked absolutely delighted. “It worked!” she exclaimed, giggling with elation. “I felt it, but it worked!”

“What worked?” Tom demanded, pushing to know how she had accomplished this feat so easily — or perhaps it was incompetence on his part. But that was impossible, they were both innately skilled at the branch of mental magic. 

“I imagined myself on the Quidditch pitch,” she explained, eyes sparking with heat. 

“What?” Tom repeated, it wasn’t making any sense to him; she seemed to be drawing a connection between Quidditch and Occlumency. How she could tie Quidditch into practically everything was beyond him.

“It clears my mind,” Natalie tried to elaborate, “the pitch is where I can best concentrate. So I mentally visualize myself there and it focuses my head.”

“It clears your mind,” Tom repeated this like it was a mantra he could utilize and learn from. 

“That's what every Occlumency book in the history of the wizarding world says,” Natalie sounded rather peeved about this. “Try again.” 

Tom heeded her words. They continued for the next hour, by the end of which they were both exhausted. Tom Riddle had succeeded in breaking Natalie’s tornado of concentration and caught another glimpse into her mind. She had panicked when this happened, so she had tried to reverse the assault, forcing Tom out and trying to gain access into his own mind. This, in turn, had unnerved him as much as it did her. Thus, they both ended up panting for breath at the table outside Fortescue’s, staring at each other with astonishment blinking through their fatigue.

“Let’s stop for today,” Natalie groaned, rubbing a hand over her eyes. Her head felt like it had come close to being split open by a Bludger; the sights and sounds of Diagon Alley overstimulating her senses. 

“Agreed,” Tom Riddle looked no better than she did. A line seemed to be permanently etched above his brow and Natalie wondered if his teeth had been ground into his gums by now. His knuckles were white from clutching his wand so tightly.

Natalie glanced around Diagon Alley, gray eyes inspecting each individual and each store front. When she was satisfied with their anonymity and inconspicuity, she turned back to Tom Riddle, who was merely staring at her with a stoic expression. 

“Meet here again tomorrow?” she posed the question and watched the satisfaction flash within his eyes.

“Same time,” he countered, not bothering to make the statement a question.

“Same time,” she accepted with a nod, then rose from the table, swinging her bag over her shoulder. He followed her actions immediately. The two shared one last look before turning heel and going their separate ways. 


	26. Year VI: This is a Horcrux

Natalie Borealis and Tom Riddle were sitting in a back corner booth in the Leaky Cauldron a few days before their sixth year would begin. It had become their almost daily custom to meet at a casual spot of their choosing to practice Occlumency and Legilimency. By now, their skills had developed enough for each day to be a struggle between their minds for dominance over the other. There was very rarely a clear victor. 

It was rather easy for them to disguise what they were doing, as neither required a wand at this point. Eye contact was enough. They found that all their years of silently communicating via their eyes while sitting in a boring class had been in fact due to their natural Legilimency talents. And it was a delight to manifest them in a more focused, deliberate way. 

“You’ve got two empty spots on your Quidditch team now,” Tom casually said as they sipped on frozen butterbeer in the Leaky. At times, staring into the other’s eyes looked odd to any passerby, so they would insert some chatter into it. 

“Yes, we do,” Natalie replied with a smirk. They were gazing intently at each other, midnight black eyes trying to scrape against immovable stone gray. “Beater and Chaser.” 

“Any prospects?” 

“Neil Lament, Beater,” she grinned, “a fourth year now. He’s tried out for years. Never made it. But he’s a good player and has been improving tremendously.”

“And Chaser?” His eyes probed against hers, unable to gain any traction into her mind.

“Not sure yet.” She repelled his attack and launched her own. 

“Nott is interested in joining the team,” he informed her smoothly, despite the line that had formed on his forehead. Her Legilimency attacks were quickly becoming ruthless. His were no different. 

“I didn’t know that,” Natalie sounded extremely intrigued at this. “I’ll write him a letter, see if he’s serious.” 

“He is,” Tom promised with a slight smirk which morphed into a grimace as the strength of her attack increased — his defense slipped and Natalie managed a glimpse into his head. There was a tense silence as Tom fought to throw her out and Natalie flipped through whatever she could (whenever one of them did get into the other’s head, they were merciless about it). 

Images, memories, and feelings washed over her like an unexpected wave. When he finally decided to just shut his eyes and leap up to get more butterbeer, forcing her out, she let out a gasp and slumped against the table. 

Natalie waited until he had returned to voice what she had seen. She had to. 

“It was you,” she realized, her gray eyes were wide and dumbstruck now, “and the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets. You opened it and the snake attacked all those people. And-”

“Quiet,” he leaned forward and slapped his hand across her mouth to abruptly stop her from speaking further. 

She merely stared at him, eyes like developing thunderclouds, as a thrilling burst of energy shot through him. He rejoiced in it, it was utterly rejuvenating — a spark of pleasure in what had been an otherwise dull summer at Wool’s Orphanage. 

Not wanting to relinquish it just yet, he dropped his hand from her mouth and instead picked up one of her own hands that loosely clutched her tankard of frozen butterbeer. Her skin was damp and cold from the condensation of the drink, but the lightning effect from the physical contact was the same. 

He mindlessly began playing with her hand, flicking at each of her fingers and tapping out a rhythm — but was surprised when she moved to grasp at his own hand. 

She snatched up his right hand and pulled it towards her to study the ring that was on his index finger. He liked the feeling of her handling the ring — the power that flowed down from her ran directly into the ring (which was his first horcrux) and then up his arm and into his chest. It seemed to synchronize with the ticking part of his soul that was hidden away in the ring. It ameliorated — and could vanquish — the empty feeling he sometimes felt after having split his soul. 

“This is a horcrux,” Natalie uttered it so quietly, that had she not looked back up into his eyes and he saw the question repeated there, he would not have heard it.

He stared into her eyes for several long minutes. Not trying to delve into her memories or thoughts, just reading what was reflected in them. She already knew his other secrets: the death of his muggle father and Morfin Gaunt, and his ancestry. Now she knew about the Chamber, the basilisk, and the ring being a horcrux. Nobody else knew. Had she been anyone else, he would have killed her on the spot. But she wasn’t anybody else. And this was why he allowed her to practice Legilimency on him, at the risk of glimpsing his secrets. Tom knew she was unfailing loyal to whomever was part of her inner circle. He’d been included in it since first year. His secrets ended with her — and from what he saw in her eyes, she did not seem morally horrified by his actions. Perhaps because she had her own dirty secrets — and he knew of these as well. 

“Yes,” was all he said. He knew she was going to be a major factor in his life and ambitions no matter what happened. She knew too much about him and he knew too much about her. Their lives were going to be intertwined in some way, and he found he didn’t have a problem with that. She seemed just fine with it, too. They were too alike to let the other leave. And there was no possible way he was relinquishing of whatever energy magic she possessed. That alone was too valuable to allow her to go anywhere. 

“Why?” she whispered, still exploring the grooves and curves of the ring. 

“Why not?” he murmured back, thoroughly enjoying the stream of uplifting power she was sending through him. It pooled within his chest and made his heart beat with a steady, determined pace that filled him with conviction. 

It really was convenient that Nott wished to join the Quidditch team. Nott already knew about this energy Natalie had, making it one less person whom Tom had to monitor. The addition of Lament he could deal with — the fourth year came from a well-known wizarding family and was a competent student. Tom was planning on grooming him to become prefect next year, and would put in a good word for him with Slughorn and Dippet. Ever since he turned in Hagrid and was given an award to services for the school, he had Dippet’s ear on any and every matter. Lament would be under his wing and listening to his every word as soon as they all returned to Hogwarts. That would mean it was himself, Lestrange, Dawson, Shaw, Rosier, Nott, Avery, and then Lament who would know about Natalie. The Ravenclaws were no longer relevant, but a certain Gryffindor prefect might cause some trouble. . . .

“I. . . actually don’t know,” Natalie admitted, looking sheepish. She stopped studying his ring and moved her hands back to drink more butterbeer. Tom was immensely disappointed at the loss of the contact, though he could still feel the warmth that the energy left, filling his chest like a quiet supporter to be drawn upon to achieve whatever he desired to plan or do. 

“I’m rather impressed you’re informed on the topic, actually,” his dark eyes were dancing. 

She shrugged, “my grandmother has an admirable library. Better than Hogwarts.”

“You would be disappointed if you were looking for such topics in the Hogwarts library,” he snorted, “the selection is rather pitiful.”

“Well. . . aren’t there supposed to be side effects to the spell?”

“It’s possible. . . but a small price to pay.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Slightly.”

“I see.”

Tom gave her a sly smile. “I can’t see why you’re asking all these inane questions. You hardly care.”

Natalie sniggered, flicking her blonde braid over her shoulder. “You’re right. I really don’t care. It’s just interesting to know about. And if you do experience side effects, I want to be able to say I told you so.”

They fell into silence again, both brooding on their thoughts. They were content with the silence between them, especially now that they were much more adept at deliberately communicating through their eyes alone. 

“I’ve got to go,” Natalie announced after a while, rising from the booth and flicking several gold coins onto the table before them. Tom followed suit. “Meet. . . inside Flourish and Blotts sounds good, I need to get some new books. . . let’s say, tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.”

* * *

Oberon Talon was reaching up to pull a book down from one of the top shelves in Flourish and Blotts when someone walked right into him. 

He lost his grip on the book he had been grabbing (already halfway off the shelf), and it tumbled down — directly towards his face. Being a rather thick volume, it smashed heavily onto his face, and instantly broke his nose. He heard something crack and was greeted with a spurt of blood and warm pain upon impact. 

“Oh no! Sorry!” came the voice of whomever had walked into him. He turned (clutching his bleeding and bent nose with one hand — the book lay forgotten on the ground) to spot the blonde hair and intense gray eyes of Natalie Borealis. 

He stared at her stupidly for a moment, realizing how ridiculous he must look, covered in blood and holding a hand to his face. Evidently, it seemed that she had been wandering (or nearly sprinting) through the aisles, not looking where she was going because she was running through the list of book titles she had scribbled onto a very lengthy piece of parchment. 

“S’fine,” Talon coughed through the blood and pain. He wasn’t sure if he knew the spell to fix a broken nose, but meeting her vigorous eyes had frozen him on the spot. He couldn’t think of anything because when she had accidentally collided with him, and before his nose ended up broken, he had felt that same burst of energy flow from her and into him. The same one he had felt in the Three Broomsticks all those months ago. After that disaster, he had laid low, yet even still, couldn’t get her out of his head. Her presence was captivating, and he wouldn’t forget the dynamic, energetic feeling she had transferred to him at the pub that day. But as the school year progressed, it had seemed as if Slytherin house, a large group of upper class boys in particular, formed a tight-knit, impenetrable barrier around her. She was never not accompanied by some or all of them. They had become a sort of clique that everyone knew about and wanted to be seen with — but no one ever accomplished the latter. And so he had not had a subsequent chance to speak to her, in spite of how much he wanted to.

“Uh, did that break your nose,” she looked to the book that had tumbled to the floor after hitting him in the face. It was speckled with scarlet blood. 

“Don’t answer, also don’t move,” she said, rolling up the list of titles and stowing it away in her robes pocket. Then she retrieved her wand, pointed it at his nose, and muttered a spell. His entire face grew warm and he felt a slight tugging under his eyes and in his cheeks — but when he cautiously poked at his nose, it had healed completely and the blood had vanished. 

“Thank you,” he said, marveling at how quickly and neatly she had performed the spell. “You’re quite talented at healing spells.”

“I guess,” she shrugged and bent down to pick up the fallen book. However, he had also gone to make the same move, so when she rose with the book in her hand, their heads collided, smacking off the other with a sharp crack. They both jumped backwards, not expecting the sudden impact.

“Bloody hell, ow,” Natalie groaned and he panicked, now his turn to apologize for the accidentally incurred injury.

“Sorry!” he rushed to say, “I’m not always this violent, I swear.”

“It’s fine,” she winced as she rubbed the front of her head that had taken the brunt of the hit. 

“Uh, I don’t know if there’s any spell that can fix it. . . healing charms aren’t my thing, I’m better at Transfiguration. . .”

“It’s okay,” she told him, though when she removed her hand from her head he could see the beginning of a purple and blue bruise developing just at the top of her forehead. “I doubt it will bruise or anything.”

“Um,” he instinctively reached out a hand to lightly touch the top of her head. When he brushed against her hair and forehead, a bolt of energy leapt from her head and up through his arm. It made him forget entirely that he had also hit his head, and in fact, he couldn’t even feel it anymore. “Actually, I think it might bruise. . .”

“It’s fine,” she repeated, rubbing the spot and grimacing at the pain. Then she held out the book he had been retrieving. 

“Here,” she pushed the book into his hands, now seeming to want nothing more than to get away from him before he could cause any more harm. Talon’s attention was quickly drawn to who had appeared right behind her, however. 

Tom Riddle had popped out of nowhere, his tall figure standing directly behind Natalie. But she hadn’t noticed his presence, too busy rubbing a hand over her forehead to massage away the pain. And so when she turned to head back down the aisle from where she came, she turned into Tom Riddle, almost smacking right into his chest. 

He managed to catch her before she did so, wrapping his long fingers around the raised arm that clutched at her head and holding her before him. 

“What’s going on?” Riddle inquired in a cool voice, his eyes flicking between Natalie Borealis and Oberon Talon before settling to stare into Talon’s guilty blue eyes. Talon felt a chill run down his spine, almost as if Riddle were reading his mind. He watched as a glacial anger erupted within the depths of Riddle’s black eyes, and he found himself unconsciously taking a step backwards. 

“Riddle,” Talon cleared his throat and nodded at his fellow prefect. They were the same age, but right now he felt as if he had to explain his misbehavior to a superior. “Natalie and I had just run into each other.”

“Literally,” Natalie added with a mumble. Tom’s eyes snapped down to study her upon this utterance. He moved her hand away from her head to observe the growing bruise and accompanying lump. 

“It’s wise to be careful, Talon,” Riddle caught his eye again and Oberon Talon was overcome with a distinct feeling that Riddle was not simply referring to walking into people. 

“Yes,” Talon agreed, but held his gaze steady with Riddle’s. He wasn’t going to be bullied by Slytherins. “It is wise.”


	27. Year VI: Told You There Were Side Effects

Natalie Borealis stormed her way down the aisle of the Hogwarts Express. She had never realized how bloody loud the train was — younger students were laughing and shouting and screaming and giggling and being downright obnoxious. 

She forgot how absurdly annoying it was to attend the same school as eleven year olds. And how much audacity the second years possessed in the face of authority. She had hardly stepped off the platform before several second year Gryffindors had made a snarky comment to her about how she had already changed into her Hogwarts robes before the train had even left the station. She had given them a glare worthy of Salazar Slytherin, flashed her prefect badge, and threatened them with detention — and it only made them stalk off, huffing to themselves. 

Muttering about insubordination, she pushed past the crowds — thankfully most younger students recognized the tempest gathering around her and pressed themselves to the walls to let her pass. 

It was the first year she did not plan on sitting with Ravenclaws. Natalie had ignored the girls she once claimed as her friends since their outburst last year. It had diminished the trust she placed in those she had forged relationships with, and pushed her further into the arms of her own housemates. For they had never betrayed her, claiming to be envious of qualities she failed to see as enviable.

Natalie breathed a sigh of relief when she spotted Tom Riddle, lounging comfortably by himself in a compartment, a book within his hands. She tugged the door open and practically leapt in to join him, slamming the door shut behind her and letting out a groan.

“I want to slit my own throat or everyone’s on this train,” she announced, and her fellow prefect chuckled at her dark humor without even glancing up from his book. He had sensed her anger marching down the train, knowing she would eventually join him.

“That sounds rather messy,” he said, smirking as he lowered his book to take in the fiery appearance of Natalie Borealis. Her gray eyes were sparking with provoked wrath, lightning darting back and forth between thunderclouds, her lips twisted into a frown, and her cheeks had reddened in response to her emotions. Her tailored Slytherin robes flawlessly outfitted her fit frame, more than hinting at her athletic competence.

“You’ll never believe how insolent the second years are,” she muttered, and like that, seemed to diffuse before his eyes. Her tense posture relaxed as she settled her trunk and flung herself onto the cushioned seat opposing him, swinging her legs out to stretch them across the seat and resting her back against the wall beside the window.

“Somehow I will,” Tom Riddle was fully aware of the delinquency of the second years and it drove him just as insane as it did her.

Before Natalie could snipe out another annoyed comment, the door to the compartment slide open again and in burst Adolphus Lestrange, Eric Dawson, Evan Rosier, and Jonathan Shaw, the returning members of the Slytherin Quidditch team.

Natalie Borealis scrambled to her feet, spread her arms out and grinned upon spotting her rowdy teammates, who were no less excited to see her. 

“My favorites!” 

“Cap!” they cried in unison, practically falling over themselves to greet her with a group hug. 

“Okay, okay, personal space,” Natalie wheezed out, crushed underneath the boys who had grown significantly over the summer. She was somewhere in between Lestrange and Dawson, with Rosier and Shaw both trying to insert themselves into the mass of Slytherins in the compartment that now seemed rather small. 

“Enough behaving like children,” came Tom Riddle’s bored drawl from his seat by the window. “Are you trying to suffocate your captain?”

At his words, the four boys untangled themselves, grinning sheepishly as they rubbed the back of their necks or ran a hand through their hair. 

“Good summer, Cap?” Adolphus Lestrange had been quick to snag the seat beside Natalie. Tom Riddle did not miss the look of disappointment that flashed across Eric Dawson’s face before he settled for the seat beside Lestrange. 

Rosier and Shaw took up the spots opposite them and beside the other Slytherin prefect. Now that Tom studied the seating arrangement, he realized that he should have been quicker to ensure Natalie sat next to him. 

“Yes,” a delighted smile brightened Natalie’s expression. All former remnants of her broiling anger had vanished. “ _ Very _ productive. I hope you’re all ready for the season. I’ve already had Slughorn book us the field for pre-season practice tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow night?” Lestrange repeated, sharing a look across the cabin with Rosier, who had winced upon mention of practice.

“Yes,” Natalie clapped her hands together with excitement. “I’m thinking of having some of the babies come out and practice with us too.”

“No!” Eric Dawson whined, slouching in his seat and throwing an arm over his head in a dramatic pose. “Not the babies! They drive me bloody mental!”

“We need a new Chaser and Beater, Dawson,” Natalie reminded him, her voice firm, as though she was speaking to a child. Tom Riddle did not bother attempting to hide his smirk at this. Watching the blonde girl put her rambunctious teammates in place was always entertaining; what was more interesting was how they obeyed her without question. Her charisma and passion had ensured they had fallen into an adoring orbit around her. That and the fact that whenever they touched her they received a steady stream of an addictive and pleasurable energy. 

“And Shaw graduates this year, so I’ve got my eye on a new Keeper too.”

“Who?!” Jonathan Shaw exclaimed, pretending to be offended at the idea of Slytherin having a new Keeper next year. 

“Cato Greengrass,” Natalie smirked; Greengrass was entering his fourth year, but he had shown up to tryouts every year since his first, aiming for Keeper but being beat out by Shaw’s experience. 

“He’s not bad,” Lestrange added, poking fun at Shaw. “Might be better than you at tryouts this year. Watch out, or Cap’ll cut you from the roster.”

“He won’t be,” Shaw boasted, running a hand through his chestnut hair in a pompous display. 

“Who’s gonna be Chaser and Beater?” Rosier knew full well that she had already picked the roster for the year. 

“Lament as Beater, Nott as Chaser,” she admitted with a grin. “I wrote them both all summer, they’ve told me they’ve been practicing since June.”

“What if they’re lying?” Lestrange pointed out, draping his arm over her shoulders and slumping back onto the compartment seat with a yawn. 

“They’re not,” she said this so savagely, he almost retracted his arm immediately.

“Is Lament still obsessed with you?” Shaw recalled this with a snigger. 

“Who cares?” Rosier rolled his light blue eyes, “his father and uncle played for the national team. He’s gonna be good.”

“Actually, I’ve a grand idea,” Natalie declared, sitting up in her seat beside the window and surveying her teammates. Tom was still in the corner across from her reading his book, but she knew he was listening in on every word. 

“Dawson and Rosier, can you go find Lament and Nott and tell them to join us here? We need the same or better team cohesion and chemistry as last year.”

“Where are they gonna sit?” Lestrange complained, gesturing to the cabin, it was already full of the long limbs of the sixth year boys. (Natalie was a bit irritated they were all now much taller than her). 

“Well, you,” she ducked her head under his arm that was around her shoulders and then pushed him down so he tumbled to the floor of the compartment. “Can sit on the floor.”

Dawson, Rosier, and Shaw all howled with laughter at both her actions and Lestrange’s look of astonishment as he lay, sprawled out on the floor. Even Tom Riddle lowered his book to smirk down in amusement at Adolphus. 

“Your own teammate,” Lestrange pretended to whimper in pain from the floor. Dawson and Rosier by now had to duck out to try to breathe from laughing so much, and to retrieve Nott and Lament. Shaw had gone to accompany them, as he could scarcely control his own laughter. 

“You know what, I’m leaving with everyone else, then.” Lestrange rolled to his feet, brushed himself off with an air of haughty indignation, and marched out of the compartment. “Now you have no teammates, ha!”

Natalie just rolled her eyes and snickered. They would all be back in ten minutes, and be just as rowdy and affectionate as before. Lament and Nott would have no problem fitting in.

* * *

It was the first Sunday after their return back to Hogwarts. It was rather late, and nearly every Slytherin had retired for the evening. 

But Natalie Borealis was still awake, curled up on one of the couches in the common room with a book in hand. The book was about the animagus process. Her practice with Tom over the summer had given her enough confidence in her Legilimency and Occlumency skills for her to begin to move onto something else. Though the two had decided to continue practicing on each other throughout the school year, to keep their skills sharp — and they could always keep improving them. And it wasn’t exactly ethical to practice on another without their consent — but really, they just weren’t interested in trying to break into anyone else’s mind. Not when the other’s was a fascinating storm of passion and ambition. 

Natalie was in the middle of making a mental list of what she thought her animagus might be when the entrance to the common room slid open and someone slowly walked in. She briefly glanced over to see whoever it was, but her gaze froze on the figure. 

It was Tom Riddle, but a very pale, trembling, exhausted-looking Tom Riddle. Upon seeing someone in the common room, he had paused in his tracks, but she saw relief flash onto his face when he recognized her. 

“What did you do?” she murmured, tossing her book onto the table before the couch and sitting up to properly view him. He looked completely and utterly miserable; she had never seen him as he was now. His dark hair was wild and unkempt, his eyes had glazed over and were flickering with strange lights, the very planes and angles of his face seemed more sharp and prominent. He walked very slowly towards the couch, as if he was experiencing a tremendous amount of pain. 

He finally reached it after what seemed like centuries — and collapsed down onto it beside her. His head landed heavily on her shoulder as if his neck could not support it any longer. Instinctively, without thinking about her actions and feeling as though she was being guided by some powerful force within her, Natalie wrapped her arms around him and pulled him into a hug. He sank into the embrace as if he had been craving it for years, burying his face into her hair. 

They were silent; not needing to speak. Natalie understood what he had just done. She could feel the leather-bound journal that was now sandwiched between them. It was quivering like it had its own heartbeat, racing almost as fast as his was. 

* * *

Tom Riddle returned to consciousness a few hours later. It took him several long minutes to figure out where he was. 

The Slytherin common room. It had to be very early in the morning — the common room was dark, cast only with an eerie green light that came from the lake through the windows. He was on one of the couches, partially on top of Natalie Borealis, partially squeezed between her and the back seat of the couch. She was motionless, apparently having fallen asleep. One of her hands still tangled in his hair, the other had fallen limply to her side. His face was somewhere between her hair and her neck, and all he could smell was the faint fragrance of a brewing thunderstorm. He wasn’t sure how it was possible that she smelled like an electrical storm, but he didn’t spend too much time ruminating on it — because it somehow made perfect sense. 

Yesterday, he had made his second horcrux. Using Myrtle Warren’s death, and the diary he had purchased this past summer. His diary. . . his next horcrux. . . where was it? He remembered performing the spell in the Room of Requirement last night — it had been painful, more so than the first time for some odd reason. And it had exhausted him, he had never been more fatigued in his life. He remembered being completely consumed by this feeling of energetic depletion that he found himself wanting to find the one person who was the living opposite of a lack of energy. His memory was blurry between being in the Room of Requirement and ending up in the common room in the embrace of Natalie Borealis. He doubted he dropped the diary somewhere, it was too valuable. Even in his drained state last night, he would have understood that. 

But he found it was very hard to be concerned about where his diary could have ended up, because of how outright amazing he felt. Just a few hours ago, he had split his soul again and thought he may have destroyed his physical body while doing so, or seriously damaged it — but this idea was now a farce to how he was feeling in this moment. His entire body was warm and tingling; there was a strong, healing energy pulsing through his every bone, muscle, and organ. As if he was relaxing in soothing bathwater while an orchestra crooned a calming song somewhere in the distance and rain gently tapped on a nearby window. Even his feverish mind was calmed and comforted. He felt entirely rejuvenated and recharged after the physical and mental stress of splitting his soul. In fact, he had never felt this blissful and whole before. It was a delightful paradox, and he knew it was entirely due to the fact that Natalie Borealis had been holding him for hours now. 

Tom Riddle had never felt this euphoric in his entire life. He could make a hundred horcruxes if he could fall into Natalie’s arms after each one. But this pure and utter elation had to be reserved only for him. For another to experience it would be a perverted offense to both himself and her. No other being apart from himself would know how to appreciate and utilize her dynamic but soothing energy. That she didn’t even know about this power she possessed was extraordinary. He wondered if she would ever believe him if he attempted to explain. . .

“Told you,” her sleepy voice, sounding like a cat’s purr, pulled him from his marvellous pondering.

“Told me what,” he muttered back, just turning his head so he could glimpse her half-closed gray eyes. In the green glow of the common room, they were a soft, consoling color, like a blanket of clouds over a snug little town. 

“That there were side effects.”

He found himself smirking at this. “Small price to pay.”


	28. Year VI: Slughorn Plays Matchmaker

Horace Slughorn held his first official Slug Club gathering in late September. The invitations were on nondescript pieces of parchment and requested one’s presence in his office on the last weekend in September. It was held, of course, after Slytherin Quidditch practice. However, they practiced later than anticipated, which was entirely deliberate, to remind both Slughorn and the other members of the club that they were not taking Quidditch lightly this year. Especially their captain.

The team, all being part of the club, headed to Slughorn’s office once Natalie Borealis decided they had practiced for long enough — and Adolphus Lestrange and Eric Dawson collapsed onto the ground in an effort to convince her of their exhaustion. 

As expected, Neil Lament and Zacharias Nott had joined the team. Tryouts had been held, per tradition, but it was clear who had the most talent and skill. The two boys had no trouble assimilating themselves into the rambunctious, aggressive culture which the team possessed. 

“I’m so tired,” Lestrange was moaning as they arrived at the entrance hall. The cool September air was so refreshing, that Natalie had insisted they walk up to the castle from the pitch, rather than taking them through the Captains’ Corridor. “Why did we have to practice for so long?”

“With that attitude, you need the practice,” Natalie tersely snapped at him.

“Merlin, I’m only messing around, Cap,” Lestrange fondly tossed an arm around her shoulders, then pointed at Eric Dawson and whispered in her ear in a mischievous tone. “I heard my fellow Chaser was complaining about how long practice was.”

“Oh, shut up,” Natalie rolled her eyes and ducked out from under his reach. “Everyone knows you both were complaining the entire practice, that’s just how you are.”

“Yeah, we still love you two,” Rosier’s bright blue eyes teased the two Chasers, “no matter how much you annoy the Captain.”

“The only ones who have any right to complain are Lament and Nott,” Natalie announced, giving them both a wink before she looped her arm through Lament’s and reached up to ruffle his red hair. He was only a fourth year but was as tall as the rest of the team, save her, already. 

Lament blushed under her attentions. Upon his joining the team, it was obvious to all that he was no less obsessed with her now than he was a few years ago. But it didn’t matter. He was quickly added into her inner circle upon joining the team, and she became as fond of him as she was of them all. 

Though still shy due to his rookie status, it was apparent he had the same hard-line attitude about Quidditch as Natalie. And when it had been officially announced that he was to join the team, the others had compelled him to shake her hand. When he had done so, he was astounded and enraptured by the lightning bolt of energy that had surged from her hand into him. That same night, when Natalie had retired for the evening, the others had informed him of the pact they had to keep this a secret between themselves. He readily indoctrinated himself into this group — which contained all of them but Natalie, who, he was told, had no idea she emanated this intoxicating power. 

“And I don’t see him whining,” Natalie was pretending to chastise Lestrange and Dawson — something she did quite often. 

“He’s the team baby, he wouldn’t dare,” Dawson joked, making Lament’s pale skin redden further under his scattered freckles. 

“He’s a fourth year,” Rosier reminded him as the group rounded the last corner to Slughorn’s office.

“Baby,” Lestrange and Dawson said in unison. 

“Why isn’t Nott a baby?” Shaw pointed out the discrepancy between the two new players.

“Nott here is our age,” Lestrange punched Zacharias fondly on the arm. 

“Unfortunately,” Nott cracked, making Lestrange and Dawson gasp with affected disdain. 

“Wow, I can’t believe you would insult the Captain like that,” Lestrange began, sounding incredibly offended.

“She’s a sixth year, if you didn’t know,” Dawson continued the playful scorning. 

“Shut it, you lot,” Natalie barked at them when they reached Slughorn’s office door. It magically opened for them, as if expecting their late arrival.

Natalie entered first, keeping Lament on her arm. Though the fourth year boy was much taller than her, the power dynamic was tilted in her direction; it was clear she had taken him under her wing. In fact, Natalie had her eye on him becoming the next team captain, after she graduated. 

“Our apologies for being late, Professor,” she declared upon entering the office, noting the circular table that was half full of students. “Practice ran a bit. . . Longer than expected.”

“No trouble at all, m’dear!” Slughorn boomed as the team walked in and scoped out their seats. He pushed himself up off his chair at their entrance, and the other students already settled did the same. 

The Slug Club this year consisted largely of Slytherins. Besides the Quidditch team; Tom Riddle, Antonin Dolohov, Lloyd Avery, Pamela Selwyn, Melania Crouch, and Quinn Bulstrode sat along one side of the table. Gryffindors included Oberon Talon, Rebecca MacMillan, and Logan Wernfeld — the latter two being the same individuals who had bothered Natalie and Tom so much on the train their first year. Ravenclaws were Laurinda Bates, the sixth year prefect and Quidditch team captain, and Russell Greyson, the seventh year who once claimed to have fancied Natalie — he was this year’s Head Boy. Hufflepuffs were prefects and Quidditch players, Colten Diggory and Shelby Cox, who had begun dating at the end of last year. 

“Come in, sit down, sit down,” Slughorn gestured them into the room and towards the table, where empty plates of food were still waiting to be magically filled, pending their arrival. There was, of course, mass chaos as the team went to sit down, as it seemed as though half of those present wanted to change their initial seating arrangement upon the arrival of the Quidditch team. 

Pamela Selwyn wanted to sit next to Zacharias Nott, whom she fancied. So she asked Quinn Bulstrode to move over one seat.

Quinn Bulstrode, however, wanted to sit next to Evan Rosier, whom  _ she  _ fancied. So Quinn elected to move over two seats, but this required she tell Melania Crouch to move further down the table. 

Melania Crouch, who simply just missed her boyfriend, Abraxas, grudgingly moved over to make room for the boys. 

Tom Riddle was on Slughorn’s right-hand side, and wished to sit beside Natalie. He had specifically planned to have Dolohov and Avery shift down a seat upon her arrival, but when Selwyn and Bulstrode moved to make room for Nott and Rosier, this shattered his plans. 

But Lestrange and Dawson sat in the two seats that Selwyn and Bulstrode were gesturing Nott and Rosier to, not realizing the strategic shuffling that had been occurring. 

Oberon Talon also wanted to sit next to Natalie Borealis, but as he was between Slughorn and Rebecca MacMillan — who was beside her boyfriend, Logan Wernfeld, and thus stubbornly refused to move — ended up walking halfway around the table to where the Slytherin side was to find two empty seats. 

Irritated at the goofy Slytherin duo, Selwyn and Bulstrode stood and rounded the table, forcing Laurinda Bates to take what had been Oberon Talon’s seat, Russell Greyson to take Laurinda’s seat, and Diggory and Cox to get up and sit elsewhere.

The two empty seats Talon was headed for were quickly taken by Diggory and Cox, who had been forced to move by Selwyn and Bulstrode. 

Natalie Borealis, not caring where she sat, headed towards the first open chair she saw, bringing Lament with her. Except Shaw, Nott, and Rosier all followed her as well, not paying any attention to what was going on around the room. 

“Oh my,” Slughorn tittered upon seeing the hilarity and logistical disaster that his office had descended into. “I thought it was only first years who needed assigned seating. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, hold on just one second.” He then surveyed the room, making them all reluctantly move away from the table with a gesture. 

“Let’s see,” he pointed to the seat directly on his left. “Mr. Greyson here. Miss Bates beside Mr. Greyson. Mr. Dolohov beside Miss Bates. . . what are you waiting for? Get a move on, then.” And those whose names he called quickly began filing into their assigned seats. 

“Miss Bulstrode beside Mr. Dolohov. Mr. Rosier beside Miss Bulstrode-” Quinn Bulstrode beamed at this, giving Rosier a wink as he dropped into the seat beside her. He smirked back.

“Miss Crouch beside Mr. Rosier. Mr. Nott beside Miss Crouch. Miss Selwyn beside Mr. Nott-” evidently, Slughorn knew how to matchmake. 

“Mr. Lestrange beside Mr. Nott, Miss Cox beside Mr. Lestrange. Mr. Diggory, you may, of course, sit next to Miss Cox.”

“Mr. Shaw, on the other side of our Hufflepuff lovebirds. Mr. Lament, beside your teammate, and Mr. Dawson on Mr. Lament’s right, if you will.”

“Mr. Avery beside Mr. Dawson, and our Gryffindor lovebirds will be next.”

“Ah yes, just three left, then? Easy as pie, I say — Mr. Riddle, here if you will,” Slughorn pointed at the seat directly on his right. “Then Miss Borealis,” he gestured at the seat beside Tom, “and lastly Mr. Talon,” he finished with a flick towards the seat between Natalie and Logan Wernfeld. 

By the time they all took their seats, nearly everyone was satisfied with Slughorn’s selection. The professor was giggling as if he himself was delighted with the seating assignments. Some present wondered if he had somehow read their minds as to who they wanted to sit beside. 

“Hi,” Oberon Talon whispered to Natalie as she settled between him and Tom. “I’ll try not to cause any injuries.”

“Good,” she snorted with a shake of her head. To Talon’s relief, however, she seemed more amused than angered. 

“How was practice?” he briefly asked, hoping to engage her in a short conversation while Slughorn began to take meal requests from around the table.

“Excellent,” she smiled, unable to retain reticence when it came to her passion. “Lament and Nott are fitting in with the team nicely.”

Tom Riddle, meanwhile, after informing Slughorn of his dinner request, turned towards Natalie to indicate that it was her turn to reply to Slughorn — and found Oberon Talon occupying, in his opinion, far too much of her attention. 

Tom tapped two fingers against her knee below the table, and she turned away from Talon to look at him. He inclined his head towards Slughorn. 

“Dinner, Natalie, m’dear,” Slughorn indicated the menu on the table before her. “I’m sure you appreciate a good meal after a long practice.”

“Yes, Professor,” she smiled, briefly picking up the menu. She hardly noticed that Tom’s hand now remained casually resting over her left knee. Ever since his collapse in the common room at the beginning of the year, he seemed to constantly be reaching out to touch her. Though it was usually so modest and casual that she barely realized it half the time (compared to her teammates’ sometimes aggressive physical affection); a touch on her shoulder or arm, a tap on her hand or knee, an arm casually draped around her shoulders or pressed along her back to make sure she didn’t walk into someone (as she was prone to doing) when storming through the halls. 

“Uh, I’ll take the steak and potatoes tonight.”

Oberon Talon repeated the same order before he gently picked up her hand which just put down the menu. He saw a chance to experience the sensational energy she transmitted and so he took it without thinking twice. 

“What happened here?” he studied the fresh scrapes and red marks which stretched around her fingers, maring the pale skin. He failed to see the stony look Tom Riddle had on his face when he touched Natalie’s hand. He was too busy reveling in the flow of bubbling power he was feeling because of holding her hand within his. 

“Oh, the Snitch was a little feisty tonight,” she smirked, flexing her fingers within his grasp.

“Wait, hold on,” Talon said, sounding a bit excited. He clutched her hand a little tighter in hers, as if to ensure she wouldn’t remove it, then he reached into his pocket to retrieve his wand. “I learned a simple healing spell that can remedy this.”

“Oh,” Natalie raised an eyebrow, “I thought you said you weren’t good at healing spells?”

“I’ve been practicing,” he explained, and then proceeded to tap her scraped hand with his wand and murmur a spell under his breath. Immediately, a warmth encompassed her fingers and palm as the scrapes and redness vanished, leaving behind smooth, white skin again.

“Wow,” Natalie blinked, looking genuinely surprised that Oberon had accomplished the spell with success. She lifted her hand to turn it about and study it. “I’m actually impressed, Talon.”

“Thank you,” he grinned, blue eyes sparkling at her. “I’ve felt bloody guilty ever since Flourish and Blotts.”

“Oh, yeah,” she laughed slightly, “don’t worry about it.”

“I think I’ve done quite well so far,” Oberon commented with a grin, “haven’t done any harm — the opposite in fact.”

“That is correct, Talon,” came Tom Riddle’s polite voice from Natalie’s other side. His hand still rested upon her knee, as she seemed content with this. “Yet, we’ve only been here a few minutes.”

“Well, I’ve certainly no intention of doing any harm,” Oberon declared; there were two people he felt he had to prove himself to: Horace Slughorn and Natalie Borealis. The latter seemed to have entirely forgotten the disastrous half-date (he referred to it as this because she hadn’t realized it was a date), which he was grateful for. He had decided to not bring up the fact that when he touched her, he experienced a wonderful feeling of buzzing energy that uplifted his very soul. Not yet, at least. 

By then, the food had appeared on the table before them and everyone settled down to tuck into dinner. There was little conversation around the table until plates were clean and bellies full. 

“Now,” Slughorn garnered their attention with a word, “I’ve an exciting announcement to make to you all.” He attempted to wait a moment, as if to increase anticipation of such news, but he was too eager, and ended up clapping his hands together and spilling. “I am planning a marvelous Christmas party for our little club this year! My best students, the finest foods, the prettiest decorations, the most renowned alumni — don’t be shy to make this a networking event, I know many careers that were begun at a party. And of course, you are free to invite whomever you please to accompany you. Be it a friend, or perhaps a special someone. . .”

There was a general titter of laughter around the table at this, and smirks were exchanged between many of the group. 

Natalie was distracted by Oberon Talon tapping her wrist. She turned to him with a questioning glance to find him running a hand through his dark curls. 

“Er, would you like to attend with me?” he asked, sounding somewhat nervous.

Natalie blinked at him, bewildered by both the fact that he had asked her immediately, and that she thought it was silly to invite herself to go with him, seeing as she would be at the party anyway. Why not bring someone who wasn’t already going? 

“Sure,” she shrugged; she didn’t care who she went with. Everyone she wanted to be at the party was going to be there anyway. In fact, Talon asking her actually removed the problem of somebody outside of the group of people she cared about begging her to take them along. And it was a party — it wasn’t like she had to be stuck to Talon’s side the entire night simply because he asked her to go with him. 

“Brilliant,” Oberon softly exclaimed, looking elated. He snuck a glance across her, to where Tom Riddle sat on her other side. He was surprised to find Tom staring directly at him. His face was an emotionless mask, yet there was something swimming within the depths of his black eyes.


	29. Year VI: Tempers and Tantrums

Slytherin lost their game against Gryffindor. It was the first game of the year. And it had ended in less than ten minutes. No Chaser on either team had even scored before Thaddeus Fawley snatched the Snitch from right under Natalie’s nose. Not without giving her a good verbal taunt. Furious and appalled that she had failed to catch the Snitch, she had silently flown to the ground and walked straight into the locker room. She hadn’t spoken to anyone after the game. Skipping both lunch and dinner and heading right to bed. Melania Crouch had to report to the team that Natalie had lain in bed and stared at the ceiling the rest of the day and well into the night. 

Now, it was Sunday night, right after Slytherin’s practice. It had been a brutal practice, the Captain had been possessed with a manic, but cold energy that had the entire team flying their best and trying their hardest. The look in her eyes was enough to terrify them into flawless performance. Hufflepuff had to complain to Professor Dippet that Slytherin would not vacate the pitch for their own practice. It wasn’t until the headmaster and professors Slughorn and Dumbledore came onto the field did the Slytherin captain finally call practice to a close. The team was simply glad she had agreed to come out of her dorm and do homework with them in the common room that night. They all knew she was blaming herself for the loss, so they were being extra nice to her, and refused to speak about the game. 

“Why did you agree to go to Slughorn’s party with Talon?” Tom Riddle lazily asked Natalie Borealis. They were lounging on one of the couches that the sixth years favored. Natalie was sandwiched between Tom and Adolphus Lestrange. She was sitting cross-legged between the two, Tom on her left and Adolphus on her right. Both were using her knees as a makeshift desk on which to write their essays. The logistics worked out well enough, as Tom was right-handed and Adolphus was left-handed. Ink pots floated on either side of them. She was reading a book on animagi, and was answering any questions that came up about the essay they were working on. (She had completed this essay Friday night, when she found she couldn’t sleep the night before the Quidditch match).

“Because he asked,” she replied, sounding as if she could not care any less about the topic. In fact, she had entirely forgotten about the Christmas party. Nobody has spoken about it, until Tom brought it up just now. 

“So you just agreed to go? Just because he asked?” Tom’s tone was soft and nearing dangerous. 

“Why does it matter?” She was clearly becoming annoyed. 

He dipped his quill into the ink pot and pressed down rather hard on the parchment that was on her knee. “Since when are you partial to attending Slughorn’s parties with whomever pleases to ask you first?”

“You’ve asked me first before and I’ve gone with you,” she reminded him, growing sarcastic. 

He finally began writing on the parchment on her knee. “It’s different.” 

“How is it different?” 

Lestrange’s quill had paused in its scribbling. His gaze remained on his parchment but it was evident he was listening to them. He knew Natalie was still in a neurotic, tempestuous mood after the loss yesterday. He shot Riddle a glance out of the corner of his eye. Someone should have told him not to provoke her, he might have realized this too late. Tom Riddle was around the group so often, that sometimes Lestrange forgot that he wasn’t actually on the team, and therefore wasn’t always privy to the dynamics and happenings that occurred between them. Adolphus could feel Natalie’s temper slowly building, not only because he knew her reactions, but also because the current of energy he was experiencing from his arm on her knee had become sharper and more intense. Like cumulus clouds morphing into anvil-headed thunderclouds ready to break into storm. 

Tom had also felt this shift, and grew intently curious. He wondered how far he could bait her. 

“Well, Oberon Talon is a Gryffindor,” Tom’s voice was slow and methodical. “And you did lose to Gryffindor, yesterday, I believe.”

That was it. That was all it took for Natalie to fly into a rage. A simple nod to their loss yesterday, and the power that was buzzing through her and into the two boys on either side of her was ramped up to a white-hot, painful degree. Tom and Adolphus reflexively flinched away from her, their parchment fluttering down to the floor and the floating ink pots being knocked over. 

“Shut up, Riddle!” Natalie snarled, snapping her book shut, flying up to her feet and turning to glare down at him. Her gray eyes had lightning violently flashing between them. It was as if an overflow of roaring energy was emanating off her — even Eric Dawson and Evan Rosier, sitting on the opposing couch, shuttered at the feeling as it spun towards them like a tornado of angry black, seething clouds. 

“I expected that by now you would at least understand why I like Quidditch, if not anything else about it,” she apparently was going to stand there and rage at him in front of the team. They were all who were left in the common room at this hour. 

“But I guess not,” she continued ranting. Worry and anger began to seep into Tom’s mind. Natalie was standing before him looking utterly ruthless — and that fury was focused entirely on him. There was no telling what she might let slip. 

“It doesn’t surprise me. I’ll go to Slughorn’s party with whoever I bloody want. Talon isn’t even on the team! I don’t give a bloody shit if he’s a Gryffindor because he’s not Fawley! If you care so much about Talon asking me — why don’t you ask Talon to go with you! Then you and the other Head Boy candidate can get to know each other real well! You know, you think you’re bloody special, strolling around the school as the heir of Slytherin, showing off that stupid ring-“

“Enough!” Tom barked at her, pulling himself off the couch and drawing his wand. He couldn’t have her spilling his secrets. He was enraged at her having even approached doing so. 

“Oh, what are you gonna do? Curse me?” Natalie verbally chewed him out. Deciding he’d had enough of it, he flicked his wand at her and when she opened her mouth to continue, no words were heard. Somehow, it was possible for her wrath to deepen. Gray eyes fulminated her fury as she hit him with a glare so intense, he had to drop his gaze. Her cheeks were beginning to color themselves red as she flung her book down to the ground and streaked out of the common room. 

There was a deafening silence once she left. Lestrange, Dawson, and Rosier, the only members of the team remaining in the common room, turned to stare at Tom Riddle. They were not pleased with him, he knew. He had never provoked her like that before. He refused to meet their gaze, himself breathing rather quickly by now. Natalie’s ire had either infected him, or she had infuriated him as well by threatening to reveal his secrets. Either way, his heart was racing and his palms had become clammy. Casting a silencing spell on her had been the first thing to pop into his mind. But this wasn’t over just yet. 

“I’ll deal with it,” he muttered, mostly to himself. Keeping his wand in his hand, he darted out of the common room after Natalie. 

Tom knew immediately which way she had gone. He could practically taste the imprint of the power she exuded. Following this, he soon came upon her. She was storming down one of the corridors in the dungeons. He worried she might be heading towards Slughorn’s office, but this was then dispelled. She was heading towards the blank stretch of wall that would lead her to the Quidditch pitch.

“ _ Immobulus, _ ” he muttered, flicking his wand in her direction again. Natalie was forced to come to a grinding halt that caused her to stumble and nearly fall to the ground. She would have done so, but Tom quickly reversed both this and the silencing spell — and she caught herself just in time. He had gotten her attention, which was what he wanted.

“What do you want now, Riddle?” she whipped around and snarled at him, ever the more outraged for the usage of the second spell. 

“I ask you a simple question and you devolve into voicing information about myself which not even you should know?” he snapped this because now, he was just as angry as she was. Natalie stood before him, trembling with emotional power — he could smell the electrical brew that seemed to pulse about her. It was incredibly magnetic. The air around her was supercharged with heat — it snapped and crackled as if a storm was breaking. He could feel it in his bones, in his soul, at the very core of his magical being. It was near painful, like standing too close to a roaring fireplace — but, just as fire did, it also drew him in. Like an alluring temptress, there was something profoundly fascinating within the depths of her eyes and the clenching of her teeth. And the feeling she was exuding — of raw, untamed energy. It burned with a relentless passion, and he wanted nothing more than to touch it. To wrap his arms around it and hold it close to him. It was the delicious, addicting overlap of pleasure and pain. 

“You deliberately made me mad!” she had now drawn her own wand upon seeing his still in his hand.

“Maybe,” Tom whispered, cautiously approaching her step by step. His voice was low but she heard him anyway. The aura she was projecting and the furor within her eyes was helplessly drawing him in. But he wanted to be pulled in — to be completely entangled with her and then soak in her flaming energy. He wanted to get as close as possible, he wanted to feel as much as possible, he wanted to touch his bare hands to her reddened cheeks and breathe in the sublime vitality and-

“Why?!” she growled, now having been backed against the wall of the dimly lit dungeon corridor. The flickering torch on the opposing wall cast them into shadows, and as Tom took another step forward, his tall figure prevented this light from falling onto her. She was clothed in darkness, but somehow, had never seemed more illuminated. Maybe it was the lightning within her gray eyes, or the tingling energy that was pulsing from her, the strongest Tom had ever experienced it. 

“Why did you mention my ancestry and the ring?”

“Why did you say something that you knew would upset me?”

“Why did you mention my ancestry and the ring?”

“Stop acting like a child,” she spat at him. Tom had now cornered her against the wall and went so far as to place the hand that was not clutching his wand against the cool wall just beside her ear. He was physically and mentally quivering from the waves of energy he was experiencing from being so close to her while she was in such an emotionally charged state. It was like a candle running along the surface of his skin, not quite touching him but threatening to do so — and he had never desired to touch fire as much as he did now. 

“How am I acting like a child?” he had no idea how he had even managed to speak, the feeling was so intense that he wanted to do nothing but close his eyes and enjoy it. “You lose a Quidditch match and then abandon all sense of propriety.”

“Propriety?” she choked the word out, “ _ you’re _ going to speak to me about propriety? Knowing what you’ve done? My actions aren’t  _ near  _ as heinous as yours!”

“Don’t,” he hissed a warning, leaning in close enough so he could study up close the hurricane swirling within her eyes. “Don’t speak about my actions.”

“Why?” the storm clouds narrowed, “do you regret them?”

“Never,” he whispered. Her pale blonde hair was framing her face the same way a corona would frame an eclipse. He thought this was a very apt description. Though the awe he was experiencing now certainly trumped the awe he had felt when they had observed an eclipse in astronomy class. This was beyond anything he had ever experienced before. He was practically inhaling the indescribable power that was throbbing with a galvanizing pitch that lured him in — he was suddenly overwhelmed with a flaming desire to press his lips to hers and taste whatever beguiling power danced upon them. 

“Then  _ don’t _ speak to me about  _ propriety!” _ Tom couldn’t stand it anymore. The second the last syllable was out of her mouth, forgetting about his wand, he slammed his right hand to the wall on the other side of her head, then swooped down and went to-

But he met cold air and empty space. Tom opened his eyes to nothing. Somehow, Natalie had slipped under his arms and taken off down the hallway. He could hear her stomping through the dim corridors, muttering under her breath like the rumbling of a distant thunderstorm. Tom was frozen in complete and utter astonishment for several long moments. Once he understood what had happened, how she had slipped from between his hands as easily as clouds squeeze through mountains, he sprinted after her. He could sense her brewing emotions as if he were a bloodhound for her eclectic energy. It was of little difficulty to pursue the trace it left within the very air. 

But he realized too late, the fact he had thought of just moments ago. Tom whipped around the last corner to watch Natalie’s blonde hair and black robes vanish through the stone of the corridor wall which only she and the Quidditch captains had access to. He came to a stop before this very stretch of wall and glared at it. Nothing but his heightened breathing, pounding heart, and the distant sound of water dripping could be heard within the ill-lit dungeon hall. 

Hesitantly, before gaining confidence, he stretched out a hand and placed it against the stones where Natalie had disappeared. He almost expected his own hand to slip through the rock and allow him onto the other side. Then he grew angry — how could Hogwarts have a secret passageway which only allowed entrance to the Quidditch team captains? That was absurd. Especially for himself; he could command the beast living within Salazar’s chamber, but was forbidden from passing through a wall that merely led down to the Quidditch locker rooms? Preposterous. 

His thoughts continued raging on all that had occurred within a short time — it had only been ten minutes since they had all been in the common room. It felt as though it had been years. Tom had never before encountered the amount of such raw emotional energy as he had in the past ten minutes.

“Riddle!” a voice withdrew him from his mental broiling and he snapped his head over to spot the Quidditch team round the corner. 

“She ran down to the field,” Tom managed to tell them, attempting to make his voice sound as calm and rational as possible. He thought he achieved this quite well, seeing as his entire body and mind were aflame with thoughts of their irascible captain. His hand was still against the wall, though his fingers had curled themselves into a fist. He quickly dropped it back to his side and turned to face them fully. 

“She does that,” Lestrange told him, though it sounded somewhat like a warning. “You should probably just let her be.”


	30. Year VI: The Drama at the Party

Before they all knew it, it was the day before Christmas break and Slughorn was merrily walking up and down the Great Hall reminding the members of his precious club about it. The hope with such events was that, for the members of the student population not in the Slug Club, they would secure an invitation from one of its members. However, this was not the case, as many members of the Slug Club had elected to ask other members to attend with them. 

Natalie Borealis, of course, was attending with Oberon Talon. There were more rumors and gossip surrounding this than either of them were aware of. 

Adolphus Lestrange had jokingly asked Eric Dawson to attend the party with him as his “beautiful date”. The joke had quickly devolved into ludicrosity, with Dawson insisting they attend together. Lestrange immediately jumped aboard the humor of it all and the two elected to show up at the party arm-in-arm. (There was a general consensus that they were also planning some sort of prank of questionable morality for the party). 

Evan Rosier had asked Quinn Bulstrode, and she accepted with delight. Similarly, Zacharias Nott asked Pamela Selwyn, and the entire castle expected these four to become the next group of Slytherin pureblood power couples by the new year. 

Antonin Dolohov had asked Cassiopeia Black to accompany him as a friend, and she accepted, particularly as Neil Lament had requested her twin, Callidora Black to be his date for the evening. It was assumed that the two Black twins would find a corner and giggle the entire party. 

Jonathan Shaw had surprised everyone and asked Mallory Blackwater as his date, a pretty Hufflepuff seventh year who wore round glasses and always had a smile on her face. There was talk of these two becoming an inter-house couple, which was always entertaining to gossip about.

The girlfriend-boyfriend Gryffindor duo of Rebecca MacMillan and Logan Wernfeld would attend together, and it was expected that they would be the loudest in the room at any given moment. 

Laurinda Bates had asked her fellow Ravenclaw prefect, Marcellus Thorpe to accompany her. The entire school knew she had fancied him for years, but everyone also knew that Thorpe only accepted because he was not in the Slug Club and would risk Azkaban to obtain a chance to network with professors and alumni. 

Russell Greyson had stirred the pot some more by asking Sarah Abbott to go to the party with him. Everyone knew of the falling out between the trio of Ravenclaws and Slytherin’s Natalie Borealis, and so there was speculation of a potential showdown between the two former friends at the party. (Though Natalie had effectively squashed these rumors with an eye-roll and scoff at breakfast one morning).

Appropriately, Colten Diggory and Shelby Cox, Hufflepuff’s most adored lovers, saw fit to use their plus-one invitations to bring two of their friends to the party, to allow them a taste of the Slug Club. Diggory’s best friend, Harold Chantrey, and Cox’s best friend, Kendall Stevenson, would be accompanying the couple. 

And finally, Tom Riddle would attend with Melania Crouch. They had worked this matter out when Melania had softly admitted to him that she missed Abraxas horribly, desperately wished she could attend the party with him, but did not want to go alone. Tom was still furious at Oberon Talon — for immediately asking Natalie to accompany him, and at Natalie herself — for agreeing to attend with Talon. Melania had somehow understood his rage over this without him even speaking it aloud, and meekly voiced to him that he might in fact, be jealous of Talon. Tom vehemently denied this, of course, as what was there to be jealous of? But Melania had only cryptically smiled and asked him if he was planning on asking someone to attend with him. He had grudgingly replied he was not, despite Slughorn expecting them all to have dates. So she had suggested that they attend together, seeing as they both were unable to go with whom they wanted to. Tom had accepted this solution, as it would prevent anyone from begging him to take them with him. He also knew that Abraxas was going to be dropping in at the party to surprise Melania — so he would not have to bear the burden of conversing with her very much. She was prone to sighing and tearfully speaking about how much she missed her boyfriend. It was intolerable. 

About an hour before the party was to being, roommates Natalie Borealis, Pamela Selwyn, Melania Crouch, and Quinn Bulstrode were rushing about their dormitory, attempting to get ready. Or at least, half of them were. 

“Can one of you bring in my dress?” Pamela called from their connected bathroom, “I can’t get the spell right for my hair!”

“I’ve got it _ ,”  _ Melania said, disguising a sigh with a small cough. She and Natalie had gotten dressed and had been ready to go in less than an hour. Pamela and Quinn had been nothing but a disaster since waking up this morning. 

“It’s  _ crinis cripisco,”  _ Natalie called out from her bed. She was lounging against the pillows and flipping through a book. An anti-wrinkle charm on her dress, another charm had her hair in white gold ringlets, and another for some light makeup and she was done. 

“I do hope you don’t sit like that at the party,” Quinn giggled at Natalie’s casual, relaxed position on her bed. The slits along each side of the length of the dress she wore allowed her complete freedom of movement. So she had one leg tucked under her, the other sticking straight up in the air, with her hand reaching up to grab at her toes and stretch out her muscles, not caring how much skin this showed off in the presence of her roommates. With her silver-gray dress, black heels, and hair and makeup all done, the pose was a hilarious combination of ladylike class and rough-and-tumble athleticism. 

“I’m stretching,” Natalie droned with disinterest, “we had practice today.”

“What’s the spell that won’t wrinkle your dress?” Quinn asked, her brown eyes wide as she studied the flowy, crimson dress hanging in the air before her. (The four of them had elected to wear festive colors for the season: Natalie in silver, Pamela in gold, Quinn in red, and Melania in green).

“ _ Prohibeo rugam,” _ Natalie told her, flipping the page in her book (about animagi). The four Slytherin roommates had decided to wait until all of them were ready and then meet their dates outside Slughorn’s office. 

“If you wrinkle that dress, I will personally send you to Azkaban,” Melania shot a warning finger at Natalie as she exited the bathroom where Pamela was still struggling to curl her hair. 

“I won’t,” she gave her cousin’s girlfriend a smirk, “I like it too.”

“Good, because it’s gorgeous,” Melania eyed the silver gown that flowed across Natalie’s limbs like water. It was a curious mix of dark gray and metallic silver that looked black in dim light but twinkled as though it was star-studded in the candlelight. The thin straps that led down to a v-neck and hugging bodice swirled down into a loose bottom that fell to her ankles, with a slit on both legs for movement and a peek of skin. The material seemed to gush over her body like molten silver and black water, highlighting the captivating mixture of toned athlete and feminine curves. Natalie’s grandmother had bought her the gown for more formal occasions, and Natalie felt it suitable for the Christmas dinner.

“Riddle won’t be able to keep his eyes off you,” Melania purred with a wink. Natalie’s hand paused in turning the next page of her book. She glanced up to stare at the strawberry blonde in the mint green dress, not missing the smirk Quinn had on her face as well.

“Uh, what?”

“It’s obvious he fancies you,” Quinn Bulstrode rolled her eyes with a snigger. “Why did you think he was bloody angry about you going with Talon?”

“That’s ridiculous,” she snorted, snapping her book shut and dropping one leg from the air to raise and stretch the other. The heels were going to kill her tonight. “Riddle and I have known each other since first year. Part of the reason we’re friends is because neither of us has time for emotions.”

“Did you just say you don’t have time for emotions?” Pamela Selwyn burst out of the bathroom, her blonde hair now curled and her long, light gold dress just zipped up. 

“Yeah,” Natalie grunted with discontent. This was supposed to be a pleasant evening, not a psychoanalytic, touchy-feely one. She and Tom had hardly spoken since he deliberately infuriated her after the Quidditch loss. It was business as usual. Natalie had been been preoccupied working her Quidditch team to the bone; if they could boost their scores high enough in the next games, they could still win the Cup this year.

“That’s a bloody lie,” Pamela declared, summoning her pearl earrings with a wave of her wand. “You literally live by and on your emotions. Look at Quidditch.”

“That’s. . . different,” she argued, releasing her other leg now and rising from her relaxed pose on the bed. Quinn had ducked into the bathroom now to change and finish her makeup. There was only twenty minutes until the party was supposed to start, and it looked like they were going to be late — not that any of them minded. 

“How is it different?” Pamela Selwyn scoffed, checking her reflection in a small handheld mirror that she then tucked into her miniature clutch bag. 

“Well, it’s  _ Quidditch _ ,” Natalie pronounced the name of the sport as if it were the end of the conversation. 

“Do you fancy him back?” Melania shot this question into the blue.

“First of all,” Natalie now stood up, collecting her wand from its spot under her pillow and tucking it into the secret pocket on the inside lining of her dress near her right thigh. “You’re assuming he fancies me. Which he most certainly does not.”

“How is she so stupid!” Quinn called from the bathroom, “it’s so obvious they’re each the other’s favorite person in the school!”

“I asked him if he was jealous of you’re going with Talon and he denied it but you should have seen the look he had when I said Talon’s name,” Melania’s blue eyes were sparkling with delight. “Thought I didn’t notice it, but I did.”

“He fancies you!” Pamela teased, knocking on the door to the bathroom. “Hurry up, Quinn!”

“You got all the time in the world in here but I’ve got to rush?” Quinn snapped through the door, and Pamela rolled her eyes, making a face at the two other girls in the room. 

“Yes, you do, I’m being interrogated and I don’t like it!” Natalie yelled to her and she heard the last girl to be ready laugh. There was a rustling within the bathroom and then Quinn exited, smirking in her maroon dress and tugging a dark curl into place. 

“I guess we can go now,” she announced, tossing her wand into her bag and looking at them all. “But before we leave, just say if you fancy Riddle or not.”

“I’m going,” Natalie said shortly, flicking her blonde curls behind her and heading out the door, silver dress swirling around her. She was followed by the giggling of the others, each walking carefully in their heels and long gowns. 

“I can ask him tonight if he fancies you for sure,” Melania suggested as they made their way through the common room and out into the dungeon corridor. 

“No!” Natalie groaned, quickening her pace. “Stop! Leave us both alone!”

“Okay, but it’s obvious you both fancy each other so you two should really just grow up and date already,” Bulstrode remarked before they rounded the corner and came in sight of the boys waiting at the end of the corridor, just outside Slughorn’s office. 

“Shh!” Natalie hissed at Quinn before putting on a mask of casual grace and approaching the four boys. Her eyes were burning, however, as her roommates had irritated her enough. Each of the four girls had independently informed their dates to wait for them outside Slughorn’s office — so there was an air of tension between them all, and it looked as though they were avoiding looking at each other.

“Took you long enough,” Evan Rosier commented before he gave Quinn Bulstrode a smile. “You look. . . beautiful.”

“And you look rather dashing yourself,” Quinn replied with a grin as Zacharias Nott complimented Pamela Selwyn in a similar fashion. Tom Riddle had simply held out an arm to Melania Crouch and the pair had stepped into the office, ignoring the others. 

“Wow,” Oberon Talon appeared at Natalie’s side and murmured in her ear. “You look bloody amazing. . .”

“Thanks,” she muttered, still annoyed from the looks Pamela and Quinn were sending her way. She allowed Talon to pick up her hand and plant a kiss on the back of it to soothe his Gryffindor chivalry. Somehow, this small action managed to deepen her annoyance tenfold. She pulled her hand from his grasp and stepped around him. “Let’s go in then.”

“Excellent,” Talon sounded oddly enthusiastic, looping his arm through hers and pulling her to his side as he opened Slughorn’s office door and entered the room. Their entrance was rather awkward, as Natalie went to fly into the room and head straight towards the food. Talon, however, nearly crushed her arm to his side and prevented her from doing so. Holding her back as he stepped in and took some time gazing about the office at who was inside. 

It was the Slug Club, most of the Hogwarts’ professors and staff, and a scattering of various alumni — ranging from obviously important Ministry officials to a few professional Quidditch players. And Professor Slughorn himself was bouncing all about the room, speaking to them all. 

“Ah! Miss Borealis! Mr. Talon! Welcome, welcome! Merry Christmas to you both!” Slughorn had spotted their entrance — given how slowly Talon had guided Natalie into the room. He had evidently just finished speaking to Melania and Tom.

“Professor, Merry Christmas to you as well,” Talon politely said, dragging Natalie with him towards the group of Slughorn, Tom, Melania, and what looked like a Ministry official. 

“I was just introducing Tom here to an old student of mine, and Melania’s elder brother, Bartemius Crouch,” Slughorn clapped a hand on the shoulder of the young wizard with sharp eyes and a taut jaw. “Barty here, I am proud to announce, recently landed a job in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.”

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Oberon stuck out his arm which was not clutching Natalie’s and shook Crouch’s hand. Barty gave him a firm handshake and a swift nod, which clearly intimidated Talon enough to not continue conversing. 

“Melania speaks about you all the time,” Natalie used this opportunity to wrench her arm from Oberon’s grasp (the force with which she did this was not lost on the entire group) and extended her hand to shake Crouch’s hand herself. Oberon shot her a look of astonished disdain at how openly aggressive her movement was. Tom Riddle, studying their body language closely, could not hide his smirk at Talon’s reaction. Oberon Talon could not handle Natalie Borealis and if there was anyone who knew this, it was Tom. 

“I was inclined to believe she was more apt to speak about your cousin,” Barty stated as they shook hands. It was a contest between them for who could squeeze the other’s hand the hardest in a silent display of mischievous dominance. It was won by Barty, but only because Oberon looped his arm back around Natalie’s, exclaimed he simply had to greet Professor Dippet, and pulled her away from the group. 

“Why’d you do that?” Natalie sneered in a low voice to him as he led her across the room. They passed the platters of food that had been laid out by house elves and she began dragging her heels — she hadn’t eaten after Quidditch practice, her roommates anxious to begin getting ready — so she was nearly starved. The appetizing scent of the hot food practically had her drooling. 

“Are you having trouble walking?” Oberon paused and glanced her up and down. 

“I am in heels,” she pointed out, but her eyes were on the food. “Can you let go of my arm for a minute?”

“Don’t you want to say hello to Professor Dippet?”

“Sure, but I’m hungry, Talon. I want to eat.” 

“Oh,” he seemed to back down, and released her arm. “Okay, yes, let’s eat.” 

“You can go talk to Dippet,” she informed him, immediately breaking towards the food. Oberon’s presence was becoming overbearing and grating. She wanted to relax at the party, not run all about the room. 

“We can eat first,” he decided, stepping in front of her to pick up plates and hand one to her. “A lady should never eat alone.” 

“Okay,” she brushed this comment off and began to help herself to the food, hoping she could blend into the crowd and mingle with the others like she had planned to all along. 

“I didn’t know Melania Crouch’s brother had gotten a position at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement,” Oberon said as he stayed on her heels when she went to sit at one of the small tables about the room. 

“Now you do,” she responded before digging into the food before her. Natalie lapsed into silence, and had hoped it would remain that way. Luckily, it was not Oberon who broke it. 

“Hey,” Adolphus Lestrange slid into the seat beside Natalie and leaned in towards her. “Drink the punch in the big cauldron,” he pointed towards the golden cauldron in the middle of all the platters of food. It had a sweet-smelling silver steam rising from it. “Or don’t.” 

“What’d you do?” Oberon leaned forward to hear Lestrange better, going so far as to bend over Natalie’s arm and flick some of her blonde curls away from her face. In doing so, he allowed his hand to rest lightly upon the bare skin of her shoulder. 

Lestrange just smirked at the Gryffindor before disappearing off into the party. Natalie grinned as she spotted Eric Dawson across the room whispering something into Shaw’s and Blackwater’s ears as well. 

“What did he say?” Oberon asked her, but she ignored him, watching Dawson leave Shaw and approach her. He was wearing a smirk — the kind of which she was very familiar with. 

“I have something for you,” Dawson said once he was close enough. 

“Oh?” Natalie raised an eyebrow and stretched out her hand to take the square bit of folded parchment he handed her. 

“Don’t open it here,” he told her, green eyes wide as he glanced from her, to Oberon’s hand which still lay upon her shoulder, then back to her. Natalie understood immediately.

“Of course,” she quickly tucked the parchment into the lining of her dress where her wand was stowed away.

Dawson gave her a fond wink before swirling away into the crowd.

“What did he give you?” came Talon’s immediate question.

“Just some spare parchment.” She was now growing irritated by his fingers drumming against her shoulder. He was beating out some obscure, awkward tempo, but seemed to be greatly enjoying himself in doing so. She shrugged her shoulders quickly, which briefly threw his hand off her — but it settled right back onto the bare skin just by the strap of her dress. 

Unwilling to become uncivil at a Christmas party, she settled for another way to get away from Talon. 

“I’m going to get some punch,” she pushed her empty plate away and went to stand.

“Oh, I can get it for you!” Talon jumped up, gave her a small bow, and headed towards the cauldron.

“Bloody hell,” she groaned under her breath, pressing two fingers to the bridge of her nose. Talon was going to drive her mental the entire evening. She didn’t want to sit by his side the entire night, and certainly did not want to be dragged about the room on his arm to greet everyone either. She began to regret mindlessly agreeing to attend this party with him. But to admit that would mean that Tom was right. She wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction. Mumbling her annoyance under her breath, she instead retrieved the parchment Dawson had slipped her and unfolded it. On it was three letters, scribbled in Lestrange’s handwriting. It read “ROR” and the meaning was immediately obvious to her. There was going to be — what looked like by exclusive invite only — an afterparty. In the Room of Requirement. Hosted by Lestrange and Dawson. And there would likely be plenty of intoxicating beverages present. 

Natalie grinned as, after she had read the letter, it burst into flames and the ashes floated away. Looking up, she met Lestrange’s eye from across the room and he shot her a wink. She shook her head at him, but then rolled her eyes and smirked — she now realized what Dawson and Lestrange had been sniggering about the past week. The commencement of their sixth year had them wanting to make the last two years at the school their most enjoyable. They had spoken of throwing a party in the Room of Requirement for years — and had finally gotten around to doing so. 

“What’s so funny?” Oberon’s voice pulled her gaze away from Lestrange and back to him. He presented her with a steaming goblet of punch and she immediately took a sip. It was hardly detectable from the taste, but it was spiked — as she had assumed from Lestrange’s advice. She wasn’t sure what it was spiked with, but it tasted like the nectar of the gods. 

“Nothing,” Natalie said, but her smirk did not vanish. She rose from her seat, taking the goblet with her, and headed towards where she had just spotted Abraxas enter the office door. He had informed her weeks ago that he was coming to surprise Melania. 

“Where are you going?” Oberon hastily asked, immediately following after her. 

Natalie gestured with her goblet towards the blond hair of her cousin. He had spotted her as well and was beckoning her towards him. He stayed close to the door, hiding behind one of the decorated Christmas trees. 

“Oh,” Talon said and continued following her. Natalie ignored him.

“You wore  _ that _ to this party?” Abraxas gave her a look as Natalie joined him behind the tree. Oberon awkwardly stood behind her, sipping on punch.

“Grandmother bought it for me,” she told him, deliberately sounding as pretentious as possible, then handed him her goblet. “Try this.”

He took the goblet from her and sniffed it before raising it to his mouth and taking a sip. His gray eyes widening with amusement. “Lestrange?”

“Yes,” Natalie sniggered as he handed it back to her with a smirk. 

“So, Mr. Talon,” Abraxas then addressed Oberon, “I see you were the first to ask my cousin to this lovely party. How’s she treating you?”

“It’s been an utter delight,” Oberon declared, again placing his hand on her shoulder. Natalie was slightly in front of Talon, facing Abraxas, who saw the annoyance that this action caused her. Gray eyes flashed at him as he chuckled and shook his head. 

“Well, if you excuse me, my girlfriend needs to be surprised,” Abraxas shot his cousin a grin before mentioning their pre-planned course of action. “Mind doing me the favor of informing her?”

Natalie laughed, then swooped around — successfully throwing off Talon’s hand — and picked her way over to where Melania was sitting at a table with Tom Riddle, Evan Rosier and Quinn Bulstrode, and Zacharias Nott and Pamela Selwyn. Tom was wearing a mask of extreme politeness as it was clear that Melania was deeply upset about Abraxas not being able to attend. The other two couples were shamelessly flirting.

“Excuse me, Miss Crouch,” Natalie popped up beside Melania and Tom and smiled down at the blonde in the green dress with the melancholy blue eyes. 

“Yes, Miss Borealis?” Melania returned her affected manners. 

“There’s a scoundrel near the door who thinks you’re awfully pretty,” Natalie then stepped to the side, giving Melania a clear view towards the office door, where a grinning Abraxas Malfoy ducked out from behind the Christmas tree.

Melania let out a cry of surprised delight, almost tripping on her long dress as she scrambled from her seat and tore across the room. Abraxas met her with open arms and wrapped her in a hug as the entire party — looking about at Melania’s loud sob — crescendoed into a chorus of “aw”s. 

Natalie watched with glee, taking another sip of the punch. It was dangerously delicious. 

“Did you help plan that?” Talon questioned; sounding emotionally touched and impressed, he grasped her free hand in his and squeezed it.

“Yes,” she stated, wondering why Talon was so full of stupid questions tonight. And the constant reaching out to touch her was becoming aggravating. She attempted to pull her hand away, but his grip tightened. When she glanced up at him to snap something — tired of his behavior — she found him staring down, not at her, but at Tom Riddle. She shifted her gaze to look at Riddle, who was glaring right back at Talon, his charcoal eyes burning with such a cold fire that she thought Oberon Talon would be incinerated — or frozen — right there and then. 

For what seemed like decades, there was a silence between the three of them. Oberon Talon, staring at Tom Riddle with hardened blue eyes. Tom Riddle, sitting in his chair as if it were a throne, watching Talon the same way a king would look at a jester who made an ill-timed remark — with scorn and condescension. And Natalie Borealis was between them, one hand holding the goblet of steaming punch, the other clamped within Talon’s strong grip. 

Her gray eyes snapped from Talon’s frown, to Riddle’s stony mask, to Talon’s bunched eyebrows, then back to the depths of Riddle’s black eyes. And a strong mixture of emotions erupted within the pit of her stomach. Suddenly, she didn’t want to be anywhere near either of the boys. Talon was obnoxious and irksome. Riddle was brooding and silent, yet still seemed to have some sort of unspoken chip on his shoulder. 

In abrupt need to seize control — which she felt had been wrenched from her grasp the second Talon attached himself to her arm, she did just that. Moving in an aggressive fashion, she raised the goblet to her lips and tipped it back, allowing the rest of the punch to warm her throat and stomach. Almost smashing the goblet onto the table where Riddle sat, she turned to Talon, and placed her free hand over his. She dug her thumb into the base of his own and pressed as hard as she could. His hand spasmed with a gasp and she pulled her hand out of his. Now free from the Gryffindor, she spun on heel and marched across the room in a tornado of white curls and silver silk. The two boys watched her leave with astonishment; she left behind her the faint scent of a distant storm. 

Tom Riddle then studied Oberon Talon as he massaged his hand in an attempt to relieve the sharp pain Natalie had inflicted upon him. He derived a dark satisfaction from this. Tom had been watching them since they had walked in after himself and Melania. He had witnessed Talon, quite literally, drag Natalie around the room, and grown ever the more amused — for her anger had visibly increased with each second spent with him. Oberon Talon might be intelligent, respected, and polite — but he was trying to play with fire, attempting to walk through a raging twister and survive. And he was not equipped to do so. Tom wondered how long it would take for him to figure out that Natalie Borealis would never be content to prance about a party on the arm of a man. She was too busy storming about with her own purpose and intents. Talon would never keep up, would never understand. It was at the point that it was silly, a grand source of fabulous entertainment. 

“Careful,” Tom told Oberon with an elegant smile. 

“What?” Talon blinked his bewilderment at him. 

Tom’s smile turned into a signature smirk and he merely flicked a finger to where Natalie Borealis was whisking about like lightning bolt; shooting over towards the punch in the golden cauldron and then streaking back to where Lestrange, Dawson, Malfoy, Crouch, Shaw, Blackwater, and several others were gathered. By the goblets they all held and the developing rowdiness, it was becoming evident that something had been put in the punch. 

From the look on Talon’s face, it was clear he still did not understand. But Tom wasn’t going to waste his time to enlighten the Gryffindor. 

“Say, Riddle,” Talon remarked, suddenly becoming bold. “Do you fancy Natalie?”

“What?” it was Tom’s turn to be puzzled.

“Do you fancy her?” Oberon repeated, now taking up the seat which Melania had vacated. “Because you act as if you’ve got some sort of bloody claim to her or something.”

“That is one of the most childish statements I have ever heard from a Hogwarts prefect,” Tom ruthlessly shot at him. He didn’t have time for games. If Talon was going to sit there and speak about something as ridiculous as feelings and who-fancies-who, he would leave. In fact, he’d do so anyway. 

“It was a legitimate question,” Talon said as Tom rose and picked up the empty goblet that Natalie had left on the table. 

“Hardly a question that is worth my time,” Tom scoffed, not bothering to allot him a nod before he swept away to speak to Professor Slughorn.


	31. Year VI: The Afterparty Drama

The party continued for the next few hours, until it was obvious to the staff that the holiday punch had been spiked by someone. Slughorn, no less inebriated, grudgingly called an end to the merrimaking once Dippet inspected the contents of the cauldron and gave the large group of sixth and seventh years students a disapproving look. (Slughorn thought it was a wonderful prank).

There was no fuss from the students, from most of them, at least, at the ending of the party. And they began departing in small groups. 

“Hey, Cap, let’s go,” Dawson and Lestrange appeared on either side of the Quidditch captain, who had been engaged in a spirited conversation with a professional Quidditch player, a current member of the Chudley Cannons and a former student of Slughorn’s. 

“Go where?” the amount of punch Natalie had consumed was looking at them through glazed gray eyes. 

Dawson and Lestrange shared a glance between themselves. “Oh, Merlin,” Lestrange muttered, then stepped forward to wrap an arm around her shoulders and steer her out of the party. “We’ll take her from here,” he told the Chudley Cannon, who just laughed and went to farewell Slughorn. 

“C’mon, Cap, didn’t you want to make it to the afterparty?” Lestrange scolded her as he and Dawson led her out of the office and down the hall. Streams of students and other invitees from the party around them. They had a long walk up to the seventh floor. 

“I’m gonna make it,” Natalie told them with a giggle. “Let me walk.”

“You gotta, because we have to get up there and get the room ready,” Dawson told her and the two let go and watched as she teetered in her heels for a moment. 

“I’ve got her,” Tom Riddle appeared behind the group and nodded at Lestrange and Dawson. They sent him an appreciative look before darting off down the hall. Natalie was too concerned with getting the heels off her feet to notice anything else going on around her. She had dropped to the stone floor of the corridor and, with some struggle, pulled the heels off. When she rose back up, she swayed for a moment — muscles stretching out — and nearly falling over had she not been caught by Riddle. A firm grip on her upper arm held her steady as she tried to regain balance. 

“Woah,” she murmured, blinking for a moment and just now realizing it was Riddle who was at her side. “Oh. I thought you were Talon.”

He smirked at this. “No.”

“You coming to the afterparty?” she asked, beginning to slowly walk down the corridor, barefoot, shoes in hand. Riddle staying next to her. He linked his arm through hers, but it was not as demanding as Talon’s grip had been. This was more natural, more synergetic. 

“I suppose I am now, seeing as I have to escort the team captain there,” he remarked with affected gentility and Natalie had to pause midstep and close her eyes, lips pursing up in aggravation. 

“You’re funny sometimes,” she admitted, “but in a bloody annoying way.”

“I suppose that’s the most civil thing — and most syllables — that you’ve spoken to me in quite some time,” his voice was cool and composed as they reached the entrance hall. The doors were open to allow the visitors leave, ushering in the cold December air and giving the occupants of the castle a glimpse of the light snow that was falling. 

“Shut up,” she suddenly snapped at him, “it’s snowing.” Breaking her arm out of his, she lifted the folds of her silver dress to allow her to sprint to the entrance doors. With no qualms over the fact that she was barefoot, she stepped outside onto the cold, slippery stones of the entrance pathway that were covered in a thin blanket of white. 

Tom followed her dutifully, observing her actions with intrigue. It wasn’t the childlike delight of fresh snow; it was reverential awe of the icy precipitation that had Natalie Borealis standing just outside the castle, wearing nothing but a dress, gazing up into the black sky as soft flakes of snow drifted down onto the earth. The silence made the scene all the more mythically ethereal. 

She stuck out the hand that wasn’t holding her shoes and allowed a few flakes to melt into her skin. Then, shivering, she turned back and nearly bumped right into Tom. He caught the hand she had stretched out to the sky, noting the cold, wetness of her skin. Her inebriation made the energy that crawled from her skin and into his feel softer and a slightly muted. But it was soothing, comforting even — warm hot chocolate on a frigid winter night. He wanted to take slow, peaceful sips of it and enjoy the taste it left on his tongue. 

“Are you going to walk all about the castle like this?” he asked her, gently pulling her back into the school and out of the snow. He gestured to her damp curls, bare feet, and reddened cheeks. The dress, he observed, (he had been trying to figure out what color it was all night — sometimes it looked a silver sheer, other times a dark gray) still looked like smooth ocean waves on a cold winter’s day, rocking over her limbs with an unceasing energy. 

“Yes,” she said simply, gray eyes dancing to the same rhythm as the snow that fell outside. Pulling her hand from his, she tugged her wand from its hidden pocket and flicked it at her hair. The loose curls were now gathered up into a round bun on the top of her head, with a few hanging down to graze at the bare white skin of her neck. “No way am I climbing seven staircases in heels.”

With that, she was off — flowing towards the first of these staircases. Tom was impressed that she could move so quickly and assuredly with the amount of alcohol she had already drank throughout the party. Her goblet had never not been full. Nevertheless, he followed directly behind her — indeed, once she reached the top of the first staircase, she stumbled, and would have fallen right back down had he not caught her. 

“I can do it,” she insisted, pushing him away and gathering her dress again. “Actually. . .” looking down at the shoes in her hand, she retrieved her wand again and banished them away. They went soaring off to her dorm and she was already moving up the second staircase. 

“Don’t worry, Mr. Riddle, don’t worry,” Natalie was saying as she flew up the steps. Tom had to jog to keep up. Her athleticism was showing despite her intoxicated brain, the dress dancing around her as bare feet easily ascended the stairs. “Don’t worry.”

“Don’t worry about what?” He finally asked, not having any idea what she was on about. 

“We’ll win the Cup this year again,” she declared. Tom started to wonder how she wasn’t out of breath yet. “Don’t worry. All we need to do is score enough points. The Chasers know this. Don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t worried.”

“Oh. Good. I’m glad you actually care about the team.”

“Yes,” he was unwilling to inform her that he hardly cared about Quidditch. The social dynamics of the team and their influence on the house and school were more important to him than the sport. If anything, he was frustrated by how much time and effort she dedicated to flying and chasing Snitches. 

“I know you don’t actually care about Quidditch,” she then said and Tom nearly tripped over his own feet himself when she stated this. It was as if she read his mind. He then wondered if she had — but that was impossible; he was too skilled at Occlumency by now to not realize if she was performing Legilimency on him. Besides, he was so familiar with the feeling of her attempting to slip into his brain that he would have known. “It’s obvious you don’t.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not supposed to be.”

“I can tell.”

“Of course you can.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It isn’t supposed to mean anything that is not immediately obvious.”

“Well, then why’d you say it in such a tone?”

“There was no tone.”

“Yes, there was.”

“No, there wasn’t.”

“Yes, there was.”

“You’re acting like a child.”

“You’re acting like a child,” Natalie repeated his statement in a mocking, high-pitched voice. 

He rolled his eyes, reaching out to steady her as she swayed upon coming to the seventh and final staircase. “Now you definitely are acting like a child.”

“Shut up,” she flatly told him. 

“No,” was his response to this. 

“What did you just say?” she whipped around when she reached the seventh floor landing just down the hall from the Room of Requirement and stared at him with enormous gray eyes. They were coated with an alcoholic shine, like early morning mist covering a sleepy town. 

“No,” he smirked at her, amused by how much the two letter word irritated her. 

She didn’t have time to snap a response, because someone else called her name from down the hall.

“Oi, Natalie, I’ve been looking all over for you!” Oberon Talon came striding down the corridor towards them. 

Natalie turned back around with a whoosh of her silver dress to gaze at the Gryffindor. He was red-faced and appeared rather upset — and had evidently also consumed a bit too much of the punch. 

“What do you want, Talon?” she barked at him, and Tom Riddle stuck his hands in his pockets and settled back to watch the show. She was going to verbally Avada Kedavra him — and he was here for it. 

“I lost you at the party,” Talon sounded angry, “you were my date but you just disappeared.”

“I was  _ mingling, _ ” Natalie crossed her arms and shifted her weight on one foot in a brazen display of impudence. She looked ready to scold a child. “That’s what you do at parties, Talon.”

“Really? Because it seemed like you were avoiding me,” Talon copied her posture, folding his own arms over his chest now.

“I don’t care enough about you to actively avoid you,” Natalie snorted as though this was the silliest thing she’d heard all night. 

“I find that hard to believe.”

“I’m not going to stand here and convince you that I have no emotional attachment to you, Talon.”

“Then why’d you agree to go with me?”

“You asked first,” she shrugged, “I didn’t care who I went with, because I didn’t plan on staying attached to one person’s side the entire time. Which is apparently what you wanted.”

“You were my date, what were you supposed to do — not be seen with me at all?”

“I wasn’t going to be dragged around on your arm the whole night!” Natalie’s voice had descended into a low growl, her arms dropping down with one hand flying to where her wand was hidden. 

“It seemed like Riddle just dragged you up seven flights of stairs — do you have a problem with that, too?”

“What is wrong with you?” she did a complete turnover from cold to fiery and now raised her voice to a yell. “Why are you even here, Talon? We’re nowhere near the Gryffindor common room.”

“I heard about the party in the Room of Requirement,” he snapped, blue eyes flashing with fury.

“It’s by invite only,” she hissed at him. “And I doubt you received one.”

“Did Riddle?”

“Why do you keep bringing him into this? This isn’t about Riddle — it’s about how  _ you  _ acted tonight!”

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Adolphus Lestrange popped out of the Room of Requirement, having heard the shouting in the hall. “I’m going to ask you to be quiet. This is a private event, and we can’t have Dippet coming past this way because you can’t settle your problems like men and have a duel. . . oh, hey Cap. . . Talon what are you doing here?”

“Same thing everyone else is doing here, I suppose,” Talon turned to glare at Lestrange. 

Adolphus Lestrange just stared at him for a long moment before pulling his wand from his pocket in an obvious warning. “Piss off, Talon. Right now.”

Oberon Talon wasn’t willing to back down just yet, however. Drawing his own wand, he snapped at the Slytherin, “is that a threat?” He then raised his wand towards Adolphus and in doing so, brought the confrontation to an end.

Natalie Borealis, churning forwards like a cyclone of silver dress and golden white hair, had her wand digging into Talon’s spine within seconds. “If you even think of going ahead and cursing my teammate, it will be the last thing you do in this life.”

There was a moment of strained silence in the hall of the seventh floor corridor between the four present. Adolphus Lestrange, his wand loosely held in his hand, watched a stunned Oberon Talon stand stockstill, blue eyes blown larger than Galleons. Adolphus could hardly see Natalie behind Talon, there was just a glimpse of blonde curls piled high over his shoulder, and a few wisps of silver dress around him. But, by God, he could  _ feel _ her. Emanating from directly behind Talon, so strongly it seemed to be engulfing him entirely, was a blazing tempest of white hot admonitory energy. The warning growl before the fatal pounce. Adolphus wondered how it hadn’t crushed Talon’s skull in. 

Tom Riddle stood a few paces behind Natalie and was feeling the same force of energy. The magnitude of it was utterly alluring, it sparked something within his brain that seemed to sharpen his own focus. All he could think about was the defined curves of Natalie’s shoulders, the few loose curls of blonde hair, and the euphoria he experienced floating within the very air around her. A smirk blossomed on his face as he watched Natalie jab Talon in the back and threaten him. Seeing her openly menace Oberon Talon was a glorious Christmas gift, and he relished every second of it. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and give Talon the same glare he knew she had on her face right now. 

Gradually, Talon lowered his wand until it was returned to his pocket. He still did not dare to move any other muscle. 

“Good,” Natalie pronounced the word with violence. “Now leave, and don’t speak about this situation to anyone.”

“Fine,” he muttered, and cautiously took a step forward. She did not curse him from behind, so he continued walking, past Lestrange, past the door to the Room of Requirement, around the corner and away to Gryffindor Tower. 

The two Slytherin teammates watched him leave, waiting until his footsteps died away before they shared a look between them and burst into sniggers. 

“I can always count on my captain to have my back in a fight,” Adolphus crowed, tucking his wand away and bounding towards Natalie to sweep her into a hug that picked her up completely and swung her in a wide circle. “Even if she’s wearing a dress and no shoes.”

“Stop, stop, stop,” she moaned as he twirled her, “I’m so dizzy!”

He quickly dropped her — but a bit too hastily, for she stumbled and would have fallen for the umpteeth time this night had Tom Riddle not stepped up to catch her. 

“You’re not allowed to drink anything more,” Lestrange playfully scolded her, taking a whack at her bun of tamed golden curls. She went to lean away from his arm and out of his reach, but ended up ramming her head into Tom’s shoulder, who still had a strong grip on her. 

“Ow,” she attempted to rub the back of her head with one hand, but forgot she was still holding her wand — and so nearly poked her eye out. “Ah! I need be stopped!”

“Well, as your right-hand man on the team, I’m gonna delegate that task to Riddle here, seeing as right now, I have the more important task of entertaining most of Slytherin house,” Lestrange announced, a wide smirk on his face as he stepped back to take a theatrical bow. “Think you can handle it, Riddle?”

“I’m quite certain I can handle the captain,” Tom responded with equal affected prestige, already tugging Natalie’s wand out of her hand and tucking it away into his own pocket before she could fling it down the hall in her exasperation at herself. 

“That’s what they all say,” Natalie giggled under her breath before leaping to follow after Lestrange into the Room of Requirement. Tom snatched her hand up and pulled her back before she could walk right into him. Lestrange gave her a look over his shoulder at this but she beamed at him before allowing Tom to lead her into the Room of Requirement after Adolphus. 

The Room was alive and booming. Almost all of the fifth, sixth, and seventh year Slytherins were present, with a few other houses represented. There were some alumni who had also been given an invite. Abraxas Malfoy and Bartemius Crouch among them. The Room had morphed to host a party: there were couches along the edges of the room with small tables and chairs placed in the center. Several of these were used for various bottles of liquid and goblets. Most invitees were currently either swarming these tables, or were gathered just off to the side of these, ringing around what looked like a miniaturized Quidditch field. Complete with tiny magicked players, balls, and hoops, students were taking turns switching off to control the game. This was the loudest part of the room, bets were being placed and gold was continually exchanging hands amongst them. Neil Lament and Eric Dawson were here, and were joined by Adolphus Lestrange upon his return. Jonathan Shaw was sitting a table nearby with a blushing Mallory Blackwater. Evan Rosier and Zacharias Nott were on a couch near the fireplace in the middle of the room, with Quinn Bulstrode and Pamela Selwyn, though it looked like the couples would not remain there for long. (They were certainly not the only ones who were near ready to begin snogging, most of the couches were occupied by couples who seemed to be debating whether or not to abandon the party in favor of a broom closet or empty classroom.) Abraxas Malfoy was with Melania and her brother Barty at one of the tables, slightly away from the Quidditch game that was being played. Melania was yawning and resting her head on Abraxas’ shoulder while he and Barty appeared deep in conversation. 

Natalie slipped her hand from Tom’s and made a beeline straight for one of the tables with Firewhiskey and Merlin knows what else had been smuggled in by the former and current students. Grabbing an empty goblet, she snatched up the nearest bottle and poured herself a generous amount. She had no idea what it was, but it smelled delicious. 

“Are you sure that is a wise idea?” Tom Riddle murmured in her ear, though she could just barely hear him over the cheers and shouts coming from the Quidditch game just to the side. 

Natalie ignored him, pretending not to have heard what he was saying. There was blood rushing in her ears and the noise and activity of the Room would soon be overstimulating. So she wanted to scope out the scene before the headache she could feel building in the back of her head set in. 

Pushing through the crowd of students, she fought her way to where Dawson, Lament, and Lestrange were the main attraction of the scaled Quidditch game happening. Upon noticing her appearance at their side, they paused the game to wrap her into a hug.

“Watch the drink,” she muttered a warning, which they ignored — but someone must have grabbed the drink from her hand before it could spill, then it was back in her grip once her teammates disentangled themselves from her.

“The Captain is here, everyone!” Lestrange announced to the room, “and she’s bloody drunk!”

At this, appreciative cheers went up and goblets were raised in clear camaraderie with this statement. For it applied to everyone else there as well. Natalie laughed and took a long sip of whatever she had poured into her goblet. It tasted like victory and euphoria — so she drained it in one go. All eyes still on her as she did so — another round of whooping went off as everyone with a drink in hand proceeded to copy her actions and finish off their own goblets. Noticing this, she raised her empty goblet towards the Slytherins and other students clustered about — and they burst into more cheering and howling. 

At the point of hysterical laughter — her brain was a vortex of noises and sights, Natalie squeezed through the crowd of people who were now trying to grab at her dress or whack at her hair or catch her attention in some other way. There was a brief burst of warm astonishment inside her brain at this; she had not realized the extent to which Slytherin house itself was fond of her. She was always staying inside her little circle within the house that she at times forgot other people besides her closest friends were aware of her existence. From the way everyone was nearly fawning over her, she hazarded a guess that she had made a positive impact on the rest of her house. With this in mind as she stumbled back towards the tables, she began thinking about how much more important the Quidditch Cup was going to be this year. Slytherin deserved it. She couldn’t let them down. 

Natalie quickly found the same bottle she had poured from earlier and refilled her goblet. It passed through her mind to check the label, but she was too busy strategizing by now. They had lost their first game to Gryffindor — that thought still stung, but the score had only been 150 to 0. They would have to beat Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff by a greater margin to secure a spot in the final game, and Gryffindor would have to either lose their other two games, or only win narrowly. . . it was definitely feasible, Dawson, Lestrange, and Nott knew how to score goals, and score them fast. She would have to put off catching the Snitch for long enough to allow them to do so — and also prevent the other team’s Seeker from catching it. That part might be difficult-

A voice shattered her concentration on game plans. She was pulled back to reality to find someone holding onto her wrist as if to steady her, looking down at her with questioning eyes. “Are you okay?”

She blinked upon hearing this; of course she was okay. Why wouldn’t she be okay? She was mapping out Quidditch blueprints — what she loved to do. “Yeah?” 

She watched blue eyes drop to the goblet she was holding. She followed the gaze to find her hand was trembling with enough force to cause the liquid inside the goblet to slosh all about, nearly spilling it out down the sides. 

“Huh,” she observed this, narrowing her eyes at her hand as if to will it to stop shaking. This failed, so she went to steady it with her other hand — only to realize it was quivering at an equal velocity as the other. 

Unwilling to let this interrupt her furious mental chess game, she managed to raise the goblet to down whatever of the liquid had not already splashed out. Grinning at the warm, bubbly feeling as it slipped down her throat, she went to move around whoever it was who had stopped her planning to refill her goblet, but ended up walking straight into him. 

“Move,” she was feeling dizzy now — she wasn’t sure how she had even ended up so far away from the tables where the bottles were. Hadn’t she been right next to them? Wait, had she been walking around the room the whole time? While she was strategizing for the next Quidditch matches? And, wait — who had she walked into? Who had asked her if she was okay?

“Who’re you?” she muttered, wondering why her head suddenly felt so heavy. Was she slurring her words? The boy in front of her was tall; she had to crane her neck to get a good look at him. He had straw-colored hair, dark blue eyes, and freckles that seemed to be swimming on his cheeks. She had no idea who he was. 

“Doesn’t matter,” he told her, but she hadn’t caught what he said — too distracted by the loud cheer that had erupted from the group around the mini Quidditch field across the room. She turned in that direction, but then felt a hand wrap around her wrist and pull her in the other. 

“Woah,” she winced as this increased the pressure within her head. Her vision was growing black around the edges and it seemed to be skipping from scene to scene. And Merlin, she was  _ dizzy.  _ It was like hanging upside down on a broom from over one hundred feet in the air. 

“Woah, stop, stop, stop. . .” she tried to tug her hand out of the grip of whoever it was but it was like being enclosed in a iron vice. “Stop!”


	32. Year VI: Party's Over

Next thing Natalie knew, she was violently jerked in the other direction and her hand was freed from whoever had been dragging her towards the doors of the Room. Now standing on her own, she stumbled from the sudden change and was unable to catch herself before she tumbled down to the floor. Subconscious brain breaking through her intoxication, her hand was flung out to catch herself and she rolled over until she landed sitting upwards, bare feet out before her. The goblet had been tossed to the ground as she fell, hitting the floor with a clang. This, and the instinctual feeling that she was in danger had her scooting herself backwards until she found herself under a table, listening to what was going on just above her.

“What are you doing, Haynes?” she recognized Tom Riddle’s voice. He must have been the one who pulled her back. Haynes? That name sounded vaguely familiar. . . it must be Benson Haynes. . . he was a Gryffindor sixth year, or at least, she thought he was. 

“This isn’t your problem, Riddle,” came the reply. “This is a problem between Borealis and Oberon.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Oberon couldn’t get in this room. Now get out of the way, Oberon has unfinished business with that bitch.”

“What unfinished business could Talon have?”

“Again, it’s not your problem, Riddle,” Haynes voice was growing louder now. Natalie had to snap her eyes shut, her senses were overstimulated and everything was contributing to her migraine and the blackness that was rapidly encroaching around her. It seemed to be numbing her limbs and immobilizing her. It was odd — it didn’t feel like alcohol anymore. The moment this thought popped into her mind, a wave of fear rushed over her. Had her drink been tampered with? What was in the bottles? She frantically tried to think if someone had taken her goblet from her at any point. . . but even thinking hurt now. It was getting scary. She could no longer focus on the voices and motions around her as she was pulled inside the depths of her mind. She felt panic rise up to overtake her and knew she was hyperventilating at this point. It was as if something had burst within her to combat whatever was making her limp and helpless. Waging a relentless war within her body, she could do nothing but curl herself into a ball under the table, tucking her head under her arms and bringing it down to rest upon her raised knees as her breathing became quick and erratic and shivers of what felt like raw, uncontrollable energy coursed through her. 

That was when the party ended. When Tom Riddle forced Benson Haynes out of the Room with the threat that whatever unfinished business Talon had  _ was  _ in fact, his problem. When Abraxas Malfoy noticed the standoff between Riddle and Haynes, and then spotted Natalie huddled under a table. When he sent Melania to inform Dawson and Lestrange to shut it down. When Dawson and Lestrange — bewildered at first — then took note of the situation occurring just near the doors. They were quick to vanish the mini Quidditch pitch, to the disappointment of all present. But the room was soon emptied by the collective efforts and muscle of the Quidditch team, and Barty Crouch’s sharp understanding that the situation needed to be roped in and the less people present, the better. The room was empty in a matter of minutes, only Adolphus Lestrange, Eric Dawson, Abraxas Malfoy, Tom Riddle, and Barty Crouch remained behind. 

“What’s going on?” Lestrange approached the group that was circled around the table where Natalie was. Her face was hidden as her arms clutched at her head, holding it against her knees as she trembled and took quick, raspy breaths of air. 

“She’s. . . freaking out,” Dawson said, kneeling down to study her. He wasn’t sure what to do, he’d never seen the Captain in such a vulnerable state. “Drank too much, I’m assuming. . .?”

“It doesn’t seem like it’s just that,” Abraxas muttered, and the others agreed. They could all feel the combatting waves of both fear and determination that were rolling off the girl crouched under the table. They were as paralyzing to them as they were to her. “Feels as if she’s fighting something off.”

“What was she drinking?” Barty Crouch asked with the cool voice of a detective. As if moving to answer his own question, he picked up the goblet that lay on the floor close to where Natalie was. He ran a finger just around the inside rim, held it up to the light, then rubbed it against his thumb. “Looks like someone contaminated this.”

“What?” Lestrange snarled, eyes narrowing. The thought that someone at his party had tainted the drinks — and worse, tainted Natalie’s goblet — was enraging. “With what? Who?”

“Haynes,” Tom Riddle pronounced the name with a coldness that pulled their attention to him. An odd sort of biting authority had arisen around him, demanding them all to listen and making it exceedingly obvious that he was in control of the situation now. “Benson Haynes. He was here, either on Talon’s orders, or of his own free will. He’s one of Talon’s roommates. He was trying to pull Natalie out of the Room. Claiming Talon had unfinished business with her.”

There was a moment of silence within the room, broken only by Natalie’s labored breathing as the members of the Quidditch team present looked around at each other as if not at all surprised that Riddle felt the need to seize control of a situation where Natalie’s wellbeing was at stake.

“This smells like a Confusing Concoction, possibly,” Barty Crouch then informed them, sniffing the rim and poking the inside of the goblet with his wand. “Definitely.”

Eric Dawson furrowed his eyebrows and glanced about at them all. “Why would they want to give her a Confusing Concoction?” 

“We’ll debate intentions later,” Lestrange decided, unable to tolerate seeing Natalie huddled under the table like so for much longer. “Let’s calm her down, first.”

“Hey, Nat,” Abraxas, being her cousin, took this responsibility upon himself. He dropped to the floor and shifted near her, ducking under the table to place a hand on her forearm. He immediately drew his hand back in shock, letting out a gasp as a firebolt of burning energy shot up his own arm. He stumbled away and stood up, gray eyes meeting the worried green of Eric. “Dawson, go check if Professor Slughorn is still awake. See if he has a Draught of Peace on hand. But do not tell him what it’s for exactly.”

“On it,” Dawson shot off in an instant. 

“We’ll never get her to drink that — what’re you doing?” Lestrange gaped as Tom Riddle, with no announcement, stepped forward and flicked his wand. The table which Natalie was hiding under vanished, and the surrounding chairs followed. 

Natalie noticed the sudden removal of what she was using as a type of shield between herself and anything going on around her. Her arms slipped down from clutching at her head — allowing her red-rimmed eyes to wildly spin around, fearfully noting who was around her. 

Tom dropped down to her side, tucking his wand away and reaching out a hand. He pushed her own hands away from her face with the ease of one who was batting away a fly. Then he cupped her chin with his hand and held her head steady, forcing her to look at him. The others watched a tremor run through his arm as he experienced the same forceful shock that Abraxas had felt just prior. But he withstood it nonetheless, gazing into her glassy gray eyes with his adamant charcoal ones. 

“Focus,” he told her in a low but strong voice, knowing he was up against the effects of alcohol, a potion, and whatever else her mind was doing to itself in order to counter both of these. He had been inside her mind. It was not a pretty, nor fun place. “Look at me.”

She shivered, blinking rapidly but maintaining her wide-eyed, animalistic stare at him. Tom felt as if the raging energy within her was being drained down into his arm, where it met his calm conviction and then was mitigated and evaporated. He knew she felt this happening too, he watched her begin to grow still as her blazing mind was soothed. 

Neither knew how long this went on for. They simply stared at each other as Tom held her chin and felt the transference of a boiling, anxious energy out of her and into him, where it was frozen and put an end to. Abraxas and Adolphus watched with inquisitive fascination as Tom mollified Natalie’s panic while Barty Crouch busied himself with inspecting each of the bottles that remained on the tables about the room. 

It wasn’t long before Eric Dawson returned, out of breath and clutching a small vial of a steaming potion. He stumbled in upon the scene, gasping, “got it!”

“Shh!” Lestrange hushed him with a look, but it was too late. Natalie’s head snapped over at the sound of his entrance and she stared at him with roiling gray eyes. 

“Er, sorry,” Dawson muttered, gawking at the war that was taking place within her gaze. 

Without saying a word, Natalie somehow rolled up to her feet, pushed past Tom, and lunged the next few steps towards the nearest couch. She collapsed down onto it and drew her knees up to her, leaning back against the plush cushions and blinking stupidly in exhaustion. 

“What the bloody hell happened?” she whimpered the words out as the boys gathered around her. Tom claimed the seat on her left, his added weight on the couch caused her to fall into him and her head to loll down onto his shoulder. Neither of them seemed to have a problem with this, and Tom went ahead to wrap an arm around her and pull her closer. There was still an abundance of distressed energy that was pulsing from her. Abraxas settled on her right, and used a spell to procure a blanket in order to cover her shivering limbs. Dawson and Lestrange sat on the floor in front of the couch and could do nothing but stare at her. 

“Some bloody tosser slipped you a potion,” Adolphus explained, growing angry again. He was furious — the afterparty had been his idea, he’d planned it for weeks, and then some idiot went and did this to his Captain. He’d find this Haynes bloke and kill him. 

Natalie lifted her chin a bit to look at Adolphus over Tom’s arm and the blanket that covered her. It did not look like his statement was understood, as she stared at him for a moment before squeezing her eyes shut. She hummed for a moment, another aftershock running through her body before she grew still and Tom felt her muscles finally relax. 

“Did she just fall asleep?” Abraxas asked, peering over at his cousin. The Draught of Peace lay untouched near Eric. 

Tom studied her for a moment before nodding. “Yes.”

“Okay, now can we discuss intentions?” Eric whispered so as to not wake her. “Why would the bloody Gryffindors give her a Confusing Concoction?”

“Why the bloody hell do you think, Dawson?” Abraxas said flatly, his gray eyes fuming nonetheless at the situation his cousin had been placed in. “Talon was likely furious she wasn’t attached to him the entire night. And drunk as well. His roommate clearly had no trouble taking matters into his own hands. If they weren’t dragging her out of the party to get back at her for not behaving as their silly Gryffindor male chivalry ideas demand — then it was likely to take advantage of her. Surely you’ve seen how Talon looks at my cousin.”

His words made the blood of everyone present in the room run cold, for none of them had considered just how low the Gryffindors would sink. 

“Talon’s reputation and chances for Head Boy would be shattered if it came out that he slipped a girl a potion and tried to take advantage of her,” Dawson pointed out, and Lestrange snapped his head over to smirk at his teammate and best friend, a nefarious grin sprouting upon both their faces. 

“That’s why it was Haynes who did it,” Tom said slowly, careful not to wake the sleeping Natalie. “But, yes, you’re right. Talon would be utterly ruined if that came out. . .” And Tom would then have no competition for Head Boy. And it would ensure that Oberon Talon would never again even look at Natalie Borealis. In fact, once she recovered and understood that the Gryffindors had slipped her a potion and attempted to drag her out, he was sure she was going to attempt to take matters — and justice — into her own hands.

“Even if it was Haynes idea?” Dawson frowned. “After all, Talon was never here.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Lestrange was rubbing his hands together now. He could sense that Riddle approved of the plan formulating within his head, almost as if Riddle could read his mind. For some reason, having Riddle’s approval was all he needed to go forward with it. “He’s still implicated. They’re roommates. And we don’t have to let it slip that this happened here. We can say it happened at Slughorn’s party. Talon was her date. And everyone saw that she was annoyed with him.”

“And,” Abraxas was fully supportive of this plan, “we have a Ministry official here who has confirmed it was a Confusing Concoction.” 

They all looked over at Barty Crouch, who was sitting at the nearest table, still inspecting the goblet with the thoroughness of a law enforcement officer. 

“I will only vouch on the presence of the potion,” Crouch told them with a nod. It was evident that he was disgusted by the underhanded actions of the Gryffindors, but did not wish to involve himself in their scheme to destroy Oberon Talon’s life. 

Adolphus Lestrange’s grin was devastating. “That’s all we need.”


	33. Year VI: Christmas Break

Natalie Borealis blearily opened her eyes to a dim white glow. Blinking slowly, it dawned on her that she had no idea where she was. It looked like a Hogwarts dormitory, but it was definitely not  _ her  _ dormitory. Panic seeping into her, she shot upwards, wincing as her muscles ached and complained from the sudden movement. She came face to face with a concerned looking Tom Riddle, who was sitting at the end of the bed she was lying in. 

“Woah,” came a voice, she looked over to see Adolphus Lestrange standing nearby. Eric Dawson, Lloyd Avery, and Zacharias Nott were also present, scattered about the room looking like they were in various stages of packing. Abraxas was there for some reason, sitting on Lestrange’s bed as if he had been chatting with Riddle. Then she remembered that it was Christmas break. And that Slughorn’s party had been last night.

“What the bloody hell happened?” she demanded, realizing she was still in her silver dress. The wrinkle-free charm had held, and it looked as smooth and clean as when she first put it on. “Why am I in your dorm? What happened?”

“What do you remember?” Tom asked, seeming intently inquisitive, though there was an underlying hint of rage swimming within his eyes.

“Uh,” she massaged her forehead. She felt lightheaded and a bit nauseous, like she had just finished a punishing Quidditch practice. “There was Slughorn’s party. . . I was mad. . . at Talon. The punch was bloody good — I was talking to Bradley Gottfried on the Chudley Cannons, that was interesting. . . then it was snowing. . . the after party. . . Talon almost cursed you!” she pointed over at Adolphus, becoming furious now. “I didn’t let him though. And then. . . and then. . .”

“Do you remember drinking a lot?” Abraxas questioned, he sounded rather gentle, but this made Natalie nervous. She  _ had  _ drank a lot — had something happened? What had she done? Was she in trouble with the professors?

“Uh, yes,” she blinked several times, “what happened after that?  _ Did  _ something happen?” She did not miss the glances that swept around the room. She sat up, hugging her arms to her chest, growing insistent now. They weren’t telling her something — or were afraid to. “What happened?”

“The Gryffindors slipped a potion into your drink,” Abraxas said this with composure, but his gray eyes were flashing. “A Confusing Concoction, according to Barty Crouch. It either was not strong enough, or did not have a full effect on you. But Benson Haynes attempted to pull you out of the party. . . he claimed Oberon Talon had unfinished business with you. You. . . were panicking, and very indisposed. . . we got involved, stopped Haynes, who is currently in Slughorn’s office confessing his crimes. Talon will soon join him there.”

“We cleared the party out, but you were still panicking. Riddle managed to calm you down, then you passed out,” Adolphus finished the story. Natalie was now frozen on the bed, listening in astonishment to this. As it was told, she recalled glimpses and tidbits of it. Though her memory was a blur, and everything was covered in a bewildering fog. It didn’t feel like it had actually happened, more like it was a dream she had a few years ago. 

There was silence for a moment as she processed what they informed her of. Then, all of a sudden, without warning, it hit her. Without a word, she leapt off the bed — feeling much stronger now than last night. She swept out of the boys dorm, racing down the stairs.

“Cap, wait!” was the collective shout after her, but she ignored them. First thing she needed to do was get out of the dress. Next, kill Oberon Talon. 

Natalie beat them to the common room, then quickly turned into the girls’ dormitories, where the boys would not be able to follow. Having shaken them off for a moment, she plunged ahead to her own room and burst through the door. It was empty — the others must have already left for break. Natalie briefly wondered what time it was before she reached down for her wand in the hidden pocket of her dress — and froze. Where was her wand? More panic overtaking her, she tugged the dress off and searched the silver material in a frantic attempt to find her wand. It was missing.

“ _ Shit, _ ” she kicked the material away, noticing the black heels she had worn last night were sitting neatly beside her bed. They skidded under the bed and out of her sight when her blazing gray eyes landed on them. “Bloody hell.” 

Seething in anger and frustration, she tore about her dorm, searching for a set of clean robes. She felt very much out of control of the situation — and her life — at the moment, and she did not like it one bit. The doors of her wardrobe popped open on their own accord — or from the overflow of magic that had erupted from her emotional wrath. Fresh clothing leapt out towards her, landing in her arms as her blonde hair started braiding itself away from her face. 

In a matter of seconds, with some considerable magical assistance, she had changed into an outfit more suitable for committing a murder, pulled on a pair of boots, allowed her hair to finish braiding itself, then stamped back out to the common room.

“Where the bloody hell is my wand?” she barked at the cluster of boys just outside the entrance to the girls’ dorms.

Tom Riddle retrieved it from his pocket in an instant, presenting it to her. She leaped forward to snatch it up, but he moved it out of her reach and returned it to his pocket. The glare Natalie gave him was utterly venomous. Tom could have sworn the lights in the common room flickered in sync with the fire in her eyes. 

“Give me my wand, Riddle.”

“No,” he crossed his arms. “Your uncontrolled rage is not helpful in this situation.”

“What do you mean?” she stared at him, “You just told me Talon slipped me a potion last night. I’m going to kill him.”

“Let’s go home, cousin,” Abraxas stepped forward and put his arm around her shoulders. Steering her around and back into the girls dorms. Boys could enter only with the direct escort of a girl. “Grandmother has been informed of the situation and has been owling me all morning asking to bring you home for Christmas. And she’s invited most everyone to the Manor for the holidays. She wants to thank them all for coming to your rescue. We’ve already planned out our revenge on Talon. We’ll brief you when we all get there.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


The group of Abraxas Malfoy, Natalie Borealis, Tom Riddle, Eric Dawson, and Adolphus Lestrange disapparated once off the Hogwarts grounds and landed just outside the mansion which Cassius Malfoy had built many years ago, when he had just rekindled the Malfoy family fortune with his potions ingredient company. 

Abraxas dragged a complaining Natalie inside while the others followed, humbled and awed by the sheer extent of the mansion. At times they forgot Natalie was descended from one of, if not,  _ the  _ wealthiest, most influential pureblood family in the wizarding world. It was sometimes hard to associate her with highborn class and gentility, especially when she was on a broom, her face streaked with dirt, her hair windswept, and she was shouting something unintelligible at them. 

“Where is my granddaughter?” Domitia Malfoy’s imperious voice was heard down the hall when they entered the mansion. Half a dozen house elves immediately swarmed around the group of Hogwarts students to take their coats and luggage. 

“Right here,” Abraxas called out as Domitia stepped out from one of the side rooms off the long hallway. The white-haired, elderly witch with severe blue eyes came bustling towards them. She paused right in front of them and glanced her granddaughter up and down, pursing her lips all the while. Then she stepped forward and took hold of Natalie’s face, tilting it all about, and worrying over the girl like any anxious grandmother. She noted the exhaustion and strain around her eyes, then patted and tugged at the robes Natalie had thrown on in a hurry — clearly not pleased with how her granddaughter had returned from Hogwarts. 

“Upstairs, now,” she commanded, her voice declaring that her orders would be followed without question. “Jubbal will pour a bath for you and then you can join your friends for dinner.”

“Great,” Natalie muttered, slipping out of Domitia’s grasp and practically sprinting up the staircase that led upstairs to her room. The small house elf named by her grandmother scrambling to keep up. 

“No running!” Domitia shouted after her, but to no avail. They all heard the door slam behind Natalie from upstairs. “That girl. . .” the widow turned back to scope out her grandson now. “Are you eating enough?” she pinched at his cheek and he winced. “Melania and her brother Barty are in the sitting room. You all can join them there, but first — introduce me to these handsome gentlemen to whom I am indebted.”

“Adolphus Rabastan Lestrange, ma’am,” he had stepped forward immediately upon being referred to as a “handsome gentleman” and gave Domitia Malfoy a slight bow. 

“Lestrange!” she repeated his name, obviously pleased upon hearing the pureblood surname. “A fine family, indeed. Why, I must write to your parents, Fabienne and Rabastan, and tell them you are here!” Then she turned to Dawson, who was looking increasingly nervous. 

“Eric Ryan Dawson, ma’am,” he smiled and bowed, all of his usual cocksure arrogance vanishing under her steely gaze. 

“Dawson, Dawson,” she repeated his last name with curiosity. “Not related to Seamus Dawson, are you? Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation?”

“My father, ma’am,” his confidence returned with this. At first fearing the lack of a Sacred Twenty-Eight surname might degrade him within her eyes. 

“Why, I just had tea with him last week,” her delight grew, she was clearly pleased with her granddaughter’s choice of friends. “He’s helping the company secure a deal with the Russian ministry — they’re having a bit of a problem producing their own potions ingredients, so I thought I’d help them out. And you are?” She turned at last to Tom Riddle, who had been debating this entire time whether he should make his ancestry known or not. He realized the others’ method of introduction gave him the option to do so without being obvious.

“Tom Marvolo Riddle, ma’am,” he was slow to pronounce his name, noting the look in Domitia’s eyes at the mention of his middle name. 

“Marvolo?” she repeated, looking deeply intrigued. “You’re not Merope’s son, are you?”

“Yes, ma’am, I am,” he said, wondering what intonation her question contained. He thought he could read Natalie fairly well — there were times she baffled him, but her grandmother was another story. Domitia Malfoy could have been disgusted — or pleased — and he wouldn’t know. Her blue eyes were unquestionably authoritative — she was very aptly named. 

“You look nothing like her, all your father, I suppose — a muggle?”

“. . . yes, that’s correct, ma’am. . .”

“Well, I’ll hold my tongue,” Domitia’s eyes sparkled, “my own daughter loved a muggle, it didn’t lead her anywhere other than the grave, but it did give me a beautiful granddaughter, in spite of how much trouble she causes.”

“Abraxas?” the blonde head of Melania Crouch poked out of a nearby door, saving Tom from having to respond. 

“Melania,” Abraxas responded with a smile, sweeping forwards to greet her. 

“If you don’t marry that witch, I will raise your grandfather from the grave to give you a stern talking to,” Domitia tried to lower her voice to warn her grandson, but this was impossible for the assertive old widow, and thus everyone heard her. It was also rather clear that it would be Domitia herself who would be giving the stern talking to Abraxas. Melania blushed a deep red at this and Abraxas merely chuckled before she and the house elves ushered them all into the sitting room. 

* * *

  
  


It was close to midnight, and the mansion was quiet. Domitia had retired early. Everyone else invited to stay at the mansion over Christmas break was awake, however. 

The group of Natalie Borealis, Tom Riddle, Abraxas Malfoy, Melania Crouch, Eric Dawson, and Adolphus Lestrange were gathered about in Natalie’s bedroom. Dressed in night robes, sipping on mugs of warm tea, and munching on the plates of freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies the house elves continued to present to them all — delighted they had so many guests to serve. 

Natalie lounged against the mass of silver-colored pillows at the head of her bed, one leg stretched out before her, the other tucked up in some ninety-degree angled display of athleticism. Tom Riddle beside her. His hand was casually resting on the knee which she had bent up, and she was content with it, finding the contact curiously calming. To the point that when he removed his hand to reach for a cookie, she gave him a glare as though it was his fault that she was suddenly filled with an anxious energy. He met her gaze with surprise and quickly returned his hand. 

Abraxas and Melania were sitting on the other end of the wide bed, Melania’s head on Abraxas shoulder as she yawned her fatigue — she had been filled in on what had happened last night and was horrified about it. 

Eric Dawson and Adolphus Lestrange were each sitting on either side of the bed, in the plush, wingback chairs they had pushed over from the wall.. 

“Okay, so,” Natalie began, much more composed now. She wondered if it was the steady presence of Tom Riddle beside her that attributed to how clear-headed she felt right now. “What’s the plan?”

“Oh, we’ve already taken care of it,” Adolphus told her, sharing a grin across the bed with Eric. 

“What?” She snapped, feeling Tom’s hand tighten upon her knee as annoyance ran through her. “I thought you had some elaborate revenge plan?”

“It didn't have to be that elaborate,” Abraxas smiled. “Myself, Adolphus, Tom, and Barty went to Slughorn and Dippet in the morning and explained that Oberon Talon and his friend had slipped a potion into your goblet. With our combined presence, they did not need much more of an explanation than that.” 

“So then, what’s happening? To Talon? And Haynes?” 

“Dippet believed suspension would be superfluous because of break,” Tom explained. “And Talon’s father is on the Wizengamot and the school board. Dippet wouldn’t dare expel him, but he did strip him of his prefect badge and gave him detention for the rest of the year, along with Haynes.”

“There’s no way he’s got a shot at Head Boy now,” Lestrange added, “and it might be slipped to the whole school once we get back. It’s hard to keep things like this hushed up, you know. . .”

Natalie tilted her head at this. “The whole school?” 

“There are more people at Hogwarts than these few,” Abraxas gestured to the others in the room. “Others do pay attention to you, Natalie.”

“Right, of course,” she muttered, suddenly uncomfortable about the fact that this would soon become news to the entire school. “So. . . there’s nothing I can do?”

“What do you mean?” Dawson asked, reaching forward to take a cookie from one of the trays on the bed. “What do you want to do?”

“ _ Something _ ,” she shifted her position, rolling out her wrists and cracking her knuckles. Tom’s hand moved to hold one of hers, drawing patterns onto her skin. Her next words were surprisingly relaxed and thus rather disconcerting. “I’m the one who this happened to. I want to break Talon’s face.” 

“There’s no need,” Tom quietly told her. “He’s ruined.” 

“Let’s just destroy Gryffindor in the final Cup match,” Lestrange announced, “get them back for the first game and this.”

Natalie was silent, staring at the broom hanging on the wall opposite the bed. She understood that they were right, and she appreciated that the boys had taken care of it. . . but she still felt she should have some role. “I dunno. . . I just want to do something. . .”

“You don’t have to do everything, Cap,” Lestrange sighed, “you should learn that, actually. I know you’re Seeker and all, so it’s all on you, but, er. . .”

“Life isn’t Quidditch, cousin,” Abraxas bluntly informed her, “but you probably won’t realize that until you leave Hogwarts.”

“This isn’t about Quidditch,” she grumbled, growing agitated. Tom’s arm moved up to settle around her shoulders and pull her against his chest. She’d sensed a much more aggressively protective aura from him since the events of the parties had taken place. From all of them, in fact. She couldn’t argue against it — knowing she’d been slipped a Confusing Concoction and nearly dragged out of the Room of Requirement by an ill-intentioned Haynes was terrifying. She did not want to know what might have happened had he succeeded and Riddle and the others not stepped in. “This is about the fact that I want to rip out Talon’s and Haynes’ throats.”

“Your bloodlust is admirable, but unnecessary,” Tom informed her, tilting her head up so he could watch the thunderclouds grow within her eyes. If she found his touch soothing, he found hers addicting. 

“I wanna kill him. . .” the words seemed to fade away as she stared into his stygian eyes, seemingly captivated by what she saw there.

“Alright, well, I’m not in the mood to watch these two lovestruck puppies stare into each other’s eyes and then claim they don’t fancy each other, so I’m off to bed,” Adolphus Lestrange stood up, and Eric Dawson copied his actions. Abraxas and Melania laughed and slid off the end of Natalie’s bed. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Natalie and Tom both began to say this at the same time, stopping to give the other an odd look at their identical verbal chastisement of Lestrange. 

“Point proven,” Adolphus snorted, “you two fancy each other.”

“No,” Natalie insisted, “everyone knows I only love one thing: Quidditch.”

“Sure, Cap,” Dawson rolled his eyes, joining Lestrange near the door. “And Riddle.”

“No,” she repeated, “you’re being stupid.”

“You’re literally in his lap,” Lestrange called her out, pointing at her slumped position against Riddle’s chest. One of his arms was around her waist and she was holding his other hand in hers, fiddling with his ring. 

“That doesn’t mean anything,” she continued arguing this. It was silly to claim that she and Riddle fancied each other. They didn’t have time for things like that. 

“Why don’t you two consider behaving normally and dating?” Abraxas taunted them. 

“Why would I want to behave normally?” Natalie rolled her eyes while Tom drawled, “seems like a waste of time.”

“See,” Lestrange gestured between the two of them. “Bloody mental. The both of them.”

“Well, we’ll leave you two to discuss how you both fancy each other,” Abraxas smirked now, leading Melania and the others out. “Or plan world domination. Both probably mean the same to you two.”

“They don’t!” Natalie growled after him, but he vanished out the door, snickering with the others. Tom Riddle hadn’t moved, and the two of them sat in silence for a moment, absorbing the other’s presence. 

“You don’t fancy me, do you?” Natalie finally asked, sinking down so her head was in his lap and she still clutched the hand with his ring. His other hand moving to curl strands of her white blonde hair around his long fingers. 

“Now you’re being ridiculous,” he rolled his eyes, flicking away the lock of pale hair that had fallen into her eyes as if he was disappointed she felt the need to say this aloud. “ _ You _ don’t fancy  _ me _ , do you?”

“Don’t have time for that,” she was quick to say, slipping the ring off his hand and holding it up to study it more closely. “Too busy thinking about how to win Quidditch games and kill Gryffindors.”

“And become an animagus.”

She glanced up at him; he was smirking knowingly down at her. “Yes. That’s this summer’s project.”

“What do you think it’ll be?”

“I’ve no idea. What’s your next horcrux going to be?”

At this, he stiffened, still uncomfortable with her knowing and voicing this. “I. . . am not entirely certain. Why would you assume I would make another?”

She smirked up at him this time, “I know you.”


	34. Year VI: Truths and Lies

It wasn’t long after returning to Hogwarts in January did the entire school come to know a particular version of what had occurred at Slughorn’s party. The version which had been perpetuated by Slytherin house. 

“Did you hear what Oberon Talon did?” Hufflepuff seventh year Mallory Blackwater slid into a seat at her house table in the Great Hall, beside her chattering friends; Clarissa Prewett and Mary Wagner. It was breakfast on their second day back from break, the first day of classes resuming.

“I overheard Cassiopeia and Callidora Black talking about him, but didn’t really hear what was being said,” Clarissa was nearly jumping up and down in her seat at the prospect of some juicy gossip, dark curls bouncing with her. “But it sounded  _ bad _ .”

“It was,” Mallory dropped her voice and her two friends leaned in to listen to the story that Jonathan Shaw, whom she was now dating, had told her. Immediately, she went to tell all her gossip-loving friends. Just as Shaw, Riddle, Lestrange, and Dawson knew she would.

“So Talon was Natalie Borealis’ date to Slughorn’s Christmas party,” Blackwater eagerly began recounting the tale. “But he literally dragged Natalie all over the party, right, I heard there were bruise marks on her arms. And then, listen to this — he asked her to leave with him — but she refused, so he and his friend Benson Haynes slipped a potion into her drink and went to drag her out-”

“No!” Mary Wagner’s finer sensibilities were astounded by this. “Oberon Talon? But he’s always been so kind!”’

Mallory shook her head, brown eyes wide behind her glasses. “That’s why he thought he could get away with it!”

“Then what happened?” Clarissa insisted on hearing out the story.

“Tom Riddle saw what was happening and stepped in-”

“That boy is a saint,” Mary sighed, her blue eyes fluttering coyly. “He saved the school last year. Imagine what would’ve happened had it not been for him?”

“-and stopped Talon from dragging Natalie out and likely taking advantage of her!”

Gasps from the other two Hufflepuffs. 

“Merlin,” Mary shuddered, “does the faculty know?”

“Yes, Talon’s been stripped of his prefect badge and I heard is in detention for the rest of the year. He would have gotten worse had his father not fought it.”

“Isn’t his father on the Wizengamot?” Clarissa asked, “and the school board?”

“Probably not for long, after this disaster with his son,” Mallory snorted, “bloody embarrassing it is.”

“Did Talon even return from Christmas break?” Mary questioned, glancing up towards the Gryffindor table. There, her question was answered. Oberon Talon sat at the far end of the table, with Benson Haynes beside him — and no one else. This was contrary to the usual group of friends and acquaintances he normally had about him. “Guess so.”

“Are Tom and Natalie dating now?” Clarissa, always one for relationship gossip, wondered, looking at the Slytherin table instead. There, as usual, were Tom Riddle and Natalie Borealis, sitting in the middle of a large group of their house members. 

“Er, I don’t know actually,” Mallory blinked, realizing that as  _ she  _ was dating one of the Slytherin Quidditch teammates, she was likely welcome to join the group of Slytherins that everyone wanted to be a part of. As she turned her mind to Clarissa’s question, she found she couldn’t be sure. Sometimes the two Slytherin prefects behaved as if they were romantically involved, then at times they did not. 

“Can you go over and find out,” Clarissa pushed, delighted at Mallory’s new connection with the Slytherin Quidditch team. Obtaining inside information on the popular Slytherin group was social gold, and Clarissa was no amateur gold digger. 

“Or find out what they’re laughing about?” Indeed, the Slytherin group was snickering loudly about something that had just been said among them. 

“It would be so cute if they were dating now, too,” Mary giggled, “not only did he just save her from Talon, but it’s like the whole team is finally asking out who they fancy. You and Jonathan. Evan Rosier and Quinn Bulstrode are dating. And so are Zacharias Nott and Pamela Selwyn.”

“If they are, that means both Tom and Natalie are off the market,” Clarissa’s sharp brown eyes flicked between her two friends. “That’s gonna upset a lot of people.”

“Give your theories a rest, Clarissa,” Mary scolded the social butterfly despite her own quiet affection for Tom Riddle. “Natalie was nearly assaulted. I’m sure neither of them want any more drama right now.”

“I’m just saying,” Clarissa shrugged then turned to Mallory. “Are you gonna go?”

Mallory giggled, “yeah, I want to go see Jonathan anyway.”

“Great, tell us later in class what you find out.”

Mallory rose from the Hufflepuff table and wound her way through the hall towards the Slytherin table. She approached Jonathan Shaw, whose head perked up at her arrival and he gestured her the rest of the way towards the table. Lloyd Avery moved over to make room for her beside Jonathan. 

She meekly took the seat beside her boyfriend and glanced about the table. Jonathan was across from Evan Rosier and Zacharias Nott and their respective girlfriends, Quinn Bulstrode and Pamela Selwyn. Neil Lament and Antonin Dolohov were also on the opposite side of the table. On Jonathan’s other side was Tom Riddle, with Natalie Borealis on his immediate right. Adolphus Lestrange and Eric Dawson were on Natalie’s own right in that order. It was clear that these three were closest to the captain, in both immediate physical proximity and connection. 

“-tell Lament the story about the nine hour game,” Adolphus Lestrange was suggesting to Natalie Borealis as Mallory Blackwater joined them. They all gave her a low greeting of welcome as she did so, making her blush at the sudden attention from the large group. 

Natalie laughed at this, “oh Merlin, that game was bloody insane.”

“What happened?” Lament inquired, his freckles aligning themselves in his curiosity. 

“Well, it was a nine hour game,” Evan Rosier deadpanned, and the group burst into laughter. Neil Lament blushed, knowing he was being teased. But he didn’t mind it. He came from a large family and had three brothers. They were always teasing each other. Now, the team had become his second family. 

“Yes, it was a nine hour game,” Natalie continued after their joviality had died down. “Only because nobody could find the Snitch.”

“The game started at ten in the bloody morning, I was so tired,” Adolphus jumped into the story. “Eric wouldn’t let me bloody sleep that whole night.”

“It was our first Quidditch game!” Dawson defended himself, “I was bloody nervous!”

“It was second year,” Natalie tossed this fact out, having forgotten to mention it. “So before your time. Lestrange, Dawson, and Rosier had just joined the team, but as reserves — so they weren’t even playing in that game. Dunno why they were so nervous.”

“Crockett had said I might be playing!” Adolphus insisted, “he was captain at the time and he scared the bloody shit out of me.”

Eric Dawson punched his fellow Chaser in the shoulder. “Baby.”

“Crockett terrified you, too,” Adolphus punched him right back. 

“Anyway,” Natalie took a sip of pumpkin juice and turned her gaze back towards Neil Lament. “After about three hours, the crowd was bored out of their minds. The score was something ridiculous-”

“It was 440 to 350,” Evan Rosier’s blue eyes sparkled with reminiscence. “The Gryffindor fans started all sorts of chants that Slytherin gave right back to them.”

“Five hours in, I think Dippet went to talk to the house-elves, and snacks and butterbeer started appearing in the stands,” Jonathan Shaw piped up from beside Mallory Blackwater. “I have never been that jealous of the crowd during a Quidditch game. . .”

“But where was the Snitch?” Mallory found the courage to ask this, but soon regretted it. For she found herself under the withering glare of someone who had not even spoken during the time she had sat down. Tom Riddle had turned his stony gaze on her and was observing her with eyes like black coals, as if infuriated she had dared to speak up, jumping into a conversation which she was not at all a part of. She shrank back in her seat, feeling like a scolded child who should have known better than to speak out of turn. 

“It wasn’t until nine hours had passed, the sun was almost set,” Natalie Borealis continued the story as if the boy on her left had not guaranteed the continued dynamic of the group with one look at Mallory Blackwater, ensuring the newcomer would never again speak out of turn. “When Crockett at the time was shouting something to me, but he was behind me — and I looked back to see what he was yelling about-”

“He was always yelling about something,” Adolphus sniggered, elbowing Dawson in the ribs. 

“-when I saw. . . a  _ flash  _ of gold.”

Lestrange, Dawson, Rosier, and Nott erupted into a symphony of “oooo”s at this deliberately dramatic statement from Natalie. Her gray eyes were alight with entertainment and she was grinning widely. 

“The Snitch?” a smile tugged Lament’s mouth upwards, stretching his freckles in a different direction this time. 

“No, the Quaffle,” Lestrange rolled his eyes at the youngest team member, whose face reddened again. 

“Don’t be mean, Adolphus,” Natalie chided him, being the one to elbow him in the ribs this time. The Chaser playfully snickered in response. “Yes, it was the Snitch. It had been following me for Merlin knows how long. That’s why I never saw it until I looked behind me.”

“And the Gryffindor Seeker that year was a total dunderhead,” Eric added, “never saw it either.”

“Obviously, or the game would have ended,” evidently, Adolphus was not lightening up on the sarcasm today. 

“And did you catch it?” Lament had to know how this ended.

“No, she swallowed it — ow! Cap! What was that for?” The blonde had elbowed him in the ribs, much harder this time.

“I’m telling the story, stop interrupting, Lestrange.”

“Bloody hell,” Adolphus grumbled as Natalie wrapped it up.

“Yes, I caught the Snitch, the game ended, and we all fell asleep in the locker room after. When we woke up, there was a five course meal waiting for us and we were excused from classes on the following Monday.”

“Wow. . .” Lament breathed, “can we recreate that this year?”

“Oh, bloody hell, don’t put ideas in the bloke’s head,” Dawson groaned, to the amusement of everyone else as Natalie smirked and rose from the table. The first class of the day was about to begin.

“Who has Charms with me?”

About half of them confirmed they did and the group split to jump right back into their usual school routine.

* * *

It had been several weeks after classes had resumed since coming back from Christmas break. Natalie Borealis was sitting alone at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall. It was well after dinner, and so the Hall was only lit by the few lamps that were left alight each night. She had conjured a ball of soft blue light to float above her and illuminate the scattered pieces of parchment on the table before her. 

Normally, she would have been in the common room or even the library. But she needed to be alone. Since the incident at the Christmas party, the team and Tom had not been letting her out of their sight. It was becoming overbearing; they all had to constantly be tugging her hair, grabbing her wrist, draping an arm over her shoulders as if to ensure she was still there. She loved them — but she needed alone time too. And so for the past week she had been coming to the Great Hall to sit and do homework, telling everyone she was going off to bed. 

She would use this time to alternate between actually doing homework, conducting further research on animagi or any of her other magical interests — mastering the Patronus Charm was next up, or staring at plans and statistics for the next Quidditch match against Hufflepuff. 

Slytherin had beaten Ravenclaw by a formidable sum, it had been 540 to 130 but they would still need to do better to best Gryffindor. 

Natalie huffed, tapped her quill against her chin as she stared down at the text of the book she had open. 

A corporeal Patronus was supposed to be very difficult to successfully conjure. 

Dawson, Lestrange, and Nott were going to have to score a lot of goals in a short period of time in their next game. Before Hufflepuff caught the Snitch — or she did. 

Only the happiest of memories would work for a Patronus Charm. 

Hufflepuff’s Seeker was no joke. Harold Chantrey was a nice boy off the field, but on it, he was a Quidditch veteran with four years of experience under his belt. 

Patronuses could be used to ward off dementors but also to serve as guardians or messengers as well. 

She spun her wand between the fingers of the hand that was not clutching the quill. Winning the Quidditch Cup was definitely a happy memory. Would that work to conjure a Patronus? Or what about when she first spotted the soaring towers of Hogwarts? Or made the Quidditch team her first year? It would have to be Quidditch. Nothing could overpower the raw adrenaline and euphoria she felt while flying. 

Overtaken by a sudden wave of determination, Natalie thought about the sheer ecstasy she felt when she had last won the Quidditch cup — and the thought of feeling it again should they win again this year. 

Dropping her quill and tightening her grip on her wand, she exclaimed: “ _ Expecto Patronum!” _ and an enormous silvery white creature burst from her wand and launched itself into the air, twirling and spinning around before slowing to languidly flap its wings before her. All three pairs of them. It stared at her with keenly knowledgeable eyes as it tilted its eagle-like head. 

It was a thunderbird. Natalie gaped at the creature for a long time. It was majestically beautiful. 

“Hey — Natalie!” a voice snapped her out of her reverie and the thunderbird Patronus dissipated with a rippling of silver feathers. She glanced over to spot the tall figure of someone she had not seen or thought of in months. Oberon Talon. Instinctively, her hand curled around her wand and her muscles stiffened. 

“What do you want, Talon?” she asked coldly, straightening her posture. She might not remember exactly what happened that night at the party, but it didn’t matter. Her team had told her. 

“Woah,” Talon held his hands up in a defensive position. “I just want to talk.” 

“Talk about what?”

“Um, the incident. . .”

“You mean when you and Haynes slipped a potion in my goblet and tried to drag me out of the party? That incident?”

“Is that what you think happened?”

“What do you mean? That  _ is _ what happened.” 

“Who told you that?” Talon asked, slowly approaching her the same way he would a cornered wild animal. 

“My team did. They were there.”

“Riddle told you that, didn’t he.”

“Well, he was there too.”

“Natalie. . . that isn’t what happened.”

“What the bloody hell are you talking about, Talon? You’re saying Riddle and my teammates are lying to me?”

“Some of them might be. Because I never dragged you out of that party. Tom Riddle dragged you out of that party.”

“No he didn’t, he said he stopped  _ Haynes  _ from dragging me out,” Natalie snorted; this was ridiculous. 

“What do you remember from that night?”

“You being a bloody git.”

“You drank a lot that night. You don’t remember when Riddle slipped something into your drink?”

“That was  _ Haynes.” _

“No. Haynes was trying to get you to stop drinking so much,” Talon shook his head, a gentle look coming into his blue eyes as he took the seat across from her. “He saw Riddle slip a potion into your drink. He was trying to help. But Riddle wouldn’t let him.”

Natalie stared at him. Was he serious? “Why are you here? To lie to me?”

“They’re not lies,” Talon shook his head, his voice was disturbingly calm. It unsettled her. “You deserve to know the truth, seeing as you barely remember that night.”

“They are lies. Why would Riddle slip me a potion?”

“He fancies you.”

At this, Natalie laughed out loud. “Now, that’s the most unbelievable part of this story. Tom Riddle  _ does not  _ fancy me.”

“Yes, he does,” Oberon gave her a smile that made her pause. He seemed to genuinely believe everything he was saying. “He fancies you. Why do you think he was so upset that I asked you to the party? Or why he acts so odd around you? Or why he always has to be sitting next to you, walking next to you, near you all the time. Besides the obvious reason.”

Natalie blinked in bewilderment. It was getting odder and odder by the minute. “What do you mean, the obvious reason?”

It was Talon’s turn to be confused. “You mean, you still don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“You. . . er, this is going to sound bloody insane, but you sort of. . . give off this type of energy — vibe, type. . . er, thing. . .”

Natalie gave Oberon a look of complete annoyance. The Gryffindor must be messed up in the head, she was now convinced. “Seriously? What the hell does that even mean, Talon? ‘You give off a vibe’ — what sort of stupid prank is this?”

“It’s not a prank, I swear,” Talon persisted, “why do you think your team and Riddle are so — touchy?”

“They’re just protective after what you tried to do to me,” Natalie shrugged. This conversation was growing more and more ludicrous. Talon was sitting before her like he was some sort of oracle giving her the answers to every question she had ever pondered. Except she had no questions to ask. “If I recall correctly, you’re very ‘touchy’ as well.”

“For the same reasons as them,” Oberon explained, then held out his hand towards her. “Here, give me your hand.”

“Uh, no thanks,” she leaned away from him instead. She didn’t want to be anywhere near him. 

“Alright — well, whenever someone does, er, come in physical contact with you, they receive a sort of jolt — of energy, muggles would probably refer to it as electricity. It is electric, addicting even. It feels bloody amazing, like you could conquer the world just by holding your hand.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Talon,” Natalie rolled her gray eyes at the Gryffindor. The Bat-Bogey hex sounded great right about now. 

“Of course it doesn’t,” Oberon nodded in agreement. “That’s why they don’t tell you — because you’ll think they’re as insane as you think I am right now.”

Natalie didn’t know what to say. It was almost midnight on a weeknight in late March and here was Oberon Talon, the Gryffindor who had been her date to Slughorn’s Christmas party and then involved in a scheme to drag her out of the afterparty thrown by her teammates — telling her that she emitted some addictive energy that made everyone want to touch her. 

“Why are you laughing — I’m serious,” Oberon’s facade of cool determination began to crumble as Natalie Borealis’ laughter echoed through the otherwise empty Great Hall like a mystical but taunting musical choir. 

“Get out, Talon,” Natalie was still sniggering. “I’ve heard enough.”

“I am serious,” Talon repeated, then pulled his wand from his pocket — making Natalie fly to her feet and aim her own wand at him across the table. 

“Relax,” he told her, standing up as well. “I’ve spent the last few months perfecting a spell that sort of imitates what it feels like to someone else when they touch you. It was hard, but I had some help and figured it out.”

“What. . . the bloody hell, Talon?” Natalie growled at him, grip on her wand not loosening. “That’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“You need to know,” he said, sounding oddly passionate about this. “The others won’t tell you — they’re selfish about it, about you.”

“I told you to get out-” Natalie couldn’t finish her sentence, Talon pointed his wand at her and muttered a brief little spell — and she was nearly overwhelmed with a warm tingling sensation that filled her entire body and made her mind kick into overdrive. Suddenly, she felt she had the answers to all her problems. It was like her Patronus had reappeared to guard and guide her. If she could have become an animagus right there and then, she could have. She could have played four Quidditch games, each nine hours long, and then pass her NEWTS with flying colors. 

“Holy shit,” she whispered when it faded, “what did you just do?”

“See?” Talon looked delighted the spell had worked, “that’s what it feels like. To the team, to Riddle, to me, to anyone. It’s  _ addicting _ .” He was right, for once the feeling vanished completely, Natalie found herself ardently desiring to experience it again. Was he correct, though? Did she actually exude that feeling to anyone who touched her?

“But. . . this doesn’t make sense,” she uttered, her wand had dropped to her side in her astonishment. “How — how is that possible? What about me makes that happen?”

“I don’t really know, I’ve been meaning to talk to Professor Dumbledore about it.”

“No!” Natalie’s gray eyes narrowed with instant fury. The thought of anyone knowing about this — before she herself even knew — was horrifying. Much less, Professor Dumbledore. The man always seemed to be watching her, and on more than one occasion, she had felt him attempt to break into her mind. “If you’re even correct about all this — don’t tell Dumbledore about it.”

“Well, why not?” he questioned, “how are you supposed to find out anything else about it, other than that it actually does happen?”

“I want to research it first.”

“I’ve already done that. Dead ends. Everywhere.”

“I’m sure I can find something.”

“You won’t. That’s why I want to ask Dumbledore.”

“Don’t, Talon.”

“Or what?” she did not like the tone that crept into his voice. He had something on her now, and was going to attempt to use it against her. He knew it too. A smirk crept over his face and his blue eyes began glinting in a fashion very much unlike the noble Gryffindor integrity he was known for. 

That was when Natalie realized that perhaps Talon wielded nobility and chivalry as tools to obtain what he wanted. Nobody would ever doubt his possession of good intentions when he bowed and held the door open for them. She stared at him for a while longer, getting a glimpse at the insides of his mind with a glance into his deep blue eyes, realizing what should have been obvious as she did so. 

He fancied her, and he was envious of Tom and her teammates — who had ruined his life after the party, stripped him of his prefect badge, ensured she hated him, and would possibly lose his father his position on the school board and Wizengamot. Naturally, he wanted revenge. She could play this.

“What do you want?” she didn’t care to be anything other than blunt with him. He could stop pretending to be a noble knight. 

“I want you to know the truth,” he insisted, though she knew this was a lie — to himself. He even used the shining Gryffindor ideals to hide himself from and then justify his own dark side. “About yourself and what happened that night.” 

“Well, I do know now. I know that I give off some bloody weird energy. And that you fancy me, so you and Haynes tried to drag me out of the party that night because you were drunk and you’re jealous of my friendship with Riddle and my team so you wanted to use the fact that I was your date that night to assert your own claim over me. Is any of that wrong?”

Oberon was silent for a long moment as he stared at her as though stunned by what she said. “I. . . I’m right about Riddle fancying you. And I think half your team fancies you too. . .”

“Anything else you want me to know?” Natalie was not letting him get the upper hand over her. She lifted her wand and with a wave, all of her papers and books packed themselves up into her bag. She swung this over her shoulder and then gave Talon one last contemptuous look. “Anything?”

“Dumbledore—”

“Isn’t going to want to get involved in our petty little squabbles over who fancies who. I’m sure he’s got his hands full, especially with Grindelwald and everything.”

“Oh,” this seemed to finally deflate his last defense. The threat of involving an authority figure now useless, Talon tucked his hands into his pockets and gave her a grim smile. “Well, er, good luck in the next Quidditch match. . .”

“Thank you,” she replied curtly before finally turning and departing, leaving him there in the dimly lit Great Hall. 

But Natalie wasn’t through just yet. She swiftly made her way back to the Slytherin common room, barking out the password and storming through the common room and to the boys dormitories, not caring that it was nearly one o’clock in the morning. 

When she stumbled upon the dorm she was seeking out, she began pounding on the door until it flew open and she nearly tumbled into the room, catching herself just before she did so.

“Cap?” a groggy, bewildered Adolphus Lestrange was standing before her in his night robes. 

“Lestrange, let me in. Wake everyone up,” she snapped, barging past him into the dorm and noting that the others — Riddle, Dawson, Nott, and Avery had all already been awakened at her persistent banging upon the door. 

“What’s going on?” Dawson yawned, running a hand through his messy caramel-colored hair and gaping at a fully-clothed, seething Natalie. “Why’re you here? Didn’t you say you went to bed hours ago?”

“No, I’ve been lying to you all for a week, I’ve been doing homework in the Great Hall because sometimes I want to be alone,” she spat this out, not in the mood to mince words with them right now. The venom in her voice made them all freeze, and several pairs of wide eyes gazed at her with various stages of fright reflected in them. 

“And Oberon Talon thought it would be a nice time to barge in,” she continued and there were several angry noises around the room.

“What did he do?” she was surprised that it was Tom who asked this. Natalie ignored him, however, carrying the story at her own pace.

“And he attempted to inform me that it was not himself and Haynes who slipped me a potion that night at the party, but that it was you,” Natalie stabbed a finger in Riddle’s direction, who raised a dark eyebrow in what looked like amusement. “And that it was then also  _ you  _ who tried to drag me out of the party.”

“It wasn’t,” Lestrange spoke up, “it was Haynes. We all saw it.”

“Well, it’s not like I particularly remember that night, do I,” her voice was mercilessly caustic. “He then also informed me of some bloody weird energy that I. . . give off, or something — which he explained is the reason why you all-” she pointed around the room in a circular fashion at all the boys, “-are aggressively protective of me, and are constantly reaching out to  _ touch _ me.” When she said this, she stepped towards the closest of the group, which happened to be Avery, and grabbed his arm without warning, intently watching as he shivered as if a bolt of energy  _ did  _ in fact, shoot through him. She studied the flickers within his eyes — and that was when she knew Talon was correct about this. 

“So one of you,” she let go of Avery’s arm and glared around at them all, eyes finally landing on Riddle, who was sitting rather stoically on his bed. “Needs to tell me what the truth is.”

They were silent for a long moment, none wishing to step forward and explain. 

“Alright,” Tom finally said, he knew he was going to have to tell her about it at some point. But he had not wished for it to be like this, had not wished for her to have the knowledge of it come from none other than Oberon Talon. That boy was making more trouble for him than needed. He would have to do something about it. 

“It was Haynes who slipped that potion into your drink and then tried to drag you out. I stopped him. Talon is wrong about that. He is right about the energy.”

“That’s what we’re calling it?” Adolphus chimed in, adding to the point. “Energy? Feels bloody amazing. Like magic.”

“But what is it?” Natalie demanded, though she knew none of them had an answer. 

“We don’t know. That’s sort of why we haven’t exactly told you,” Eric spoke up from his bed across the room.

“Is it why you’re all always reaching out to touch me?”

There was a silence, and the boys shared a look between themselves. 

“I suppose, to a degree, yes,” Nott piped up to admit this. “Though part of it is because half of the people in this room fancy you.”

“What?” everyone who wasn’t Nott exclaimed as he said this. 

“Talon said that, was he right about that too?” Natalie crossed her arms and met the eyes of each individual boy present. 

“Okay! I fancy you!” Eric Dawson blushed a furious red and ducked his head as if expected to take a Bludger to the face upon saying this. 

“He’s fancied you since third year,” Adolphus shot an accusing finger across the room at his embarrassed best friend.

“You’ve fancied her since fourth year!” Eric burst out, giving Adolphus a furious glare and making Adolphus puff up with rage. 

“I would like to remind everyone that I have a girlfriend and am very much so loyal to her,” Nott drawled, to everyone’s annoyance. “But Avery also fancies you. So does Riddle, but neither will admit it.”

“I do not ‘fancy’ Natalie,” Tom rolled his charcoal eyes as Avery joined Dawson in turning a bright crimson color, effectively agreeing with Nott’s announcement. 

“Tom is off the hook, he’s already told me that,” Natalie hissed at them before turning to look at Lestrange and Dawson, her closest friends — but she was now beginning to question that title. “Do you only act the way you do because you fancy me and because of what happens with this. . . energy thing?”

“No!” they both cried, looking horrified. 

“You’re one of my best mates and a bloody amazing captain,” Adolphus proclaimed, but it came out with far too much hastiness. Natalie gave him a disappointed look before seeming to sink into herself, the storm of her rampage quickly dissipating. 

Without saying anything more, she turned and quietly slipped out of the boys’ dorm, despite their shouts for her to come back. Ignoring them, she hurried to her own dorm before they could chase after her. 


	35. Year VI: Theories

Tom Riddle found himself winding his way through the halls of Hogwarts early the next morning and ending up in the library, at his usual table. Natalie Borealis was there, looking as if she hardly slept at all, poring over a thick book. He knew she was upset; he could feel it pulsing around her. 

As he approached her, the now-familiar feeling in the pit of his stomach came back. Like there was a sneakoscope twirling about his insides. It made his heart speed up and his palms grow sweaty. He attributed it to the curious power that she emanated. He didn’t know what else could be causing it, as it had been happening since he saw her walk down the hallway in that silvery dress she wore to Slughorn’s Christmas party, and it only occurred when Natalie was around him. 

Knowing she wasn’t in the mood to talk, he silently took his normal seat beside her, retrieving his Charms essay out of his bag and sliding it down the table towards her. As he did so, he got wind of the scent which he had now come to associate with her — the tingly, electric fragrance of an approaching thunderstorm. It made his heart triple its frantic pace. He had just sat down and his palms were already clammy. He wondered if perhaps he had some illness that was exacerbating what he was experiencing when around her. 

Natalie’s hand shot out and snatched up the parchment. In exchange, she pushed her book towards him and pulled out an inkpot and quill. He gladly accepted the book — on advanced defensive spells — and watched as she uncorked the inkpot and began reading his essay. Her gray eyes whizzed over the words like torrential rain falling upon dry, crumbling earth. He fumbled with the book, attempting to get a grip on the heavy volume with his now slippery hands. Whatever her power was doing to him was growing inconvenient. This was the worst it had ever been. He could hardly focus on the words in the book before him with his heart thumping so wildly. 

“This is good,” she finally spoke up, nearly making him jump out of his seat at the suddenness of her voice. “But you never learn. Stop getting so wordy at the end, just state the conclusion and finish it.” She pushed the parchment back towards him, having crossed out half of his ending paragraph. 

“Of course,” he cleared his throat and accepted the returned parchment with as much grace as he could muster given his state. He felt terribly anxious — that was what he pinned it down as. Anxiety from the high strung energy Natalie was emanating, given that she was so upset with her teammates at the moment. 

“Have you spoken to Lestrange or Dawson — or any of them?” she quietly ventured this question. He knew she had been dying to ask it since he had appeared.

“No, they were still sleeping when I left,” he told her with as much composure as possible. When she had moved to give him the parchment, it felt like an invisible wave of energy had rolled towards him, making the hair on the back of his neck tingle, as if a storm was incoming. It was an intoxicating feeling.

“Oh,” she muttered, blinking for a moment before shaking her head and reaching out to take her book back. Tom somehow managed to hold it out to her, praying his hands weren’t actually trembling as much as he thought they were. Natalie caught it before his grip failed and it nearly fell onto the table with a heavy thunk. She didn’t seem to think anything of his sudden clumsiness — to his relief. 

“My Patronus is a thunderbird,” she murmured after there was an awkward silence between them. It was the first silence in the history of their friendship that was uncomfortable for them. 

“How do you know?” he broke out into a cold sweat that was beginning to bead along his forehead, but he was genuinely curious about her Patronus. 

“That’s what I was doing in the Great Hall before Talon interrupted. Practicing the Patronus Charm.”

“I see,” he muttered, trying to be as casual as possible when he reached up to run a hand along his forehead. He was perspiring despite the chill that lingered within the library. “Sometimes your Patronus is the form your animagus will take. . .”

Natalie pondered this for a moment. He studied her gray eyes as the thought rumbled within her mind. “I don’t think my animagus will be a thunderbird.”

“How do you know?”

“Just a. . . feeling. . .”

“Oh.”

More silence — more awkwardness. Then Tom knew he had to address what had happened last night. Hopefully it would calm her down, and in doing so, lessen the raw emotional energy that she was exuding, which would then ameliorate the stressful physical toll it was taking upon him. He would very much like it if his heart rate slowed.

“They were upset.”

“ _ Who _ was upset about  _ what _ ?” he didn’t expect that to ignite her temper as quickly as it did, but it happened anyway. She slammed the book shut and fully turned about to face him. 

Hardened gray eyes fulminating with fury as she stared him down. He thought his heart was going to leap out of his chest as he met her intense gaze. The pit in his stomach felt as though it had plunged straight down into hell. He needed a few seconds to come to his senses and gain control over his tongue, though “control” was a bit of a stretch. He felt like a loose piece of cloth in a gale; being tossed all about by the force of her dynamic energy. 

“The team,” he clarified, though he knew that she knew exactly what he was talking about. “Dawson, Lestrange, even Avery — they don’t want you to believe that they only enjoy your company due to their. . . emotional partiality and the. . . addicting energy you give off.”

“Can’t they tell me that themselves,” Natalie snorted; they both knew it was odd that this was coming from him. 

“They’re terrified,” he told her truthfully. The team adored her — but she also frightened them. It was fascinating, but if her energy affected them to the extent that it affected him, then he understood.

“Do they think I’m gonna start going on dates with them all to Hogsmeade now?”

“No.”

“Oh, and you know that because—?”

“Because that is not what they think.” This outright statement seemed to catch her off guard, and Tom watched her rage deflate because she could read the truth in his eyes. She was overreacting and now realized it. 

“Talon got into my head,” she admitted with a sigh, leaning back against her chair. At the mention of the Gryffindor prefect, Tom felt fury flash within himself now. Talon was going to pay. “I  _ am  _ mad that nobody told me about the energy thing. What does it feel like? If I do this-” she reached out and tapped a finger a few times against the back of his damp palm that still lay upon the table. 

“Like. . . bolts of raw energy,” Tom described exactly what he experienced when she did so. He felt his entire brain shut down when she unexpectedly reached out to touch him, but he would not admit that part. It was like getting sucked into a vortex that dragged him a hundred different directions. The oddest part though, was that he wanted to be completely consumed by it. To wrap it around himself and possess it entirely. 

“ _ Why?” _ she voiced the question he had been trying to deduce for years. 

“I have no idea, princess.”

Natalie gave him a surprised look and he immediately regretted letting his tongue get the best of him. His heart was racing so fast he could barely think, much less understand what was coming out of his mouth. It just seemed like the right thing to say in the moment. His mind was a blazing inferno. Merlin, this was getting embarrassing. He needed to get to the bottom of what this energy situation was with Natalie so he could understand it and then hopefully manage its effect on himself. If it made his heart beat wildly, his hands get sweaty all the time, and his brain turn to absolute gibberish, then it was going to be highly inconvenient in the future. 

“Since when do you call me that?”

“Uh, no reason in particular. . .”

“That’s not what I asked-”

“I’ve a meeting with Professor Dippet before breakfast,” Tom made up an excuse as quickly as possible, tucking his essay back into his bag and rising from the table. He needed to get out of the library immediately, before he continued making a complete fool of himself. And he had to bring his heart rate down before his arteries exploded. Without saying another word, or waiting for Natalie to respond, he pushed past the table and departed the library. 

It wasn’t until he was well down the hall did he finally feel like he could breathe, his heart stopped acting like a frenzied animal, and his head cleared. The Quidditch team had best make amends amongst themselves, and soon too, if Natalie’s energy was going to affect him to this extent.

Natalie sat at the table in the library for several long minutes, stunned by Tom Riddle’s erratic and uncharacteristic behavior. He was acting like a complete lunatic. It wasn’t until he had departed did she realize that she had practically been holding her breath the entire time he was there. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Eric Dawson awoke that morning to Adolphus Lestrange hitting him over the head with his own pillow. They were the only two still present in the dorm. 

“What the bloody hell!” Dawson groaned, fumbling around with his sheets and blankets to avoid the blows until he unceremoniously rolled off his bed and hit the floor of the dorm with a heavy thump.

“Get up, we have to fix this.”

“Fix what?” he muttered, tossing the blankets that had followed him down to the floor out of his way. 

“Cap hates us,” Adolphus reminded him of what had happened earlier that morning. “She’s probably sulking somewhere, and I really don’t want to have to fly laps all day for practice.”

“Oh, bloody hell, you’re right.”

Lestrange and Dawson didn’t find Natalie until dinner that night. Nott was accompanying them for moral support, and to make sure the conversation they intended to have was satisfactory — and refereed. It was still early — only those who liked to eat right after classes were in the Great Hall. Natalie was sitting by herself at the Slytherin table, a book open before her, it was clear that she had no idea what she was shoveling into her mouth. It also looked as though she had just come from the Quidditch pitch. 

“Hey Cap,” Adolphus murmured as he and Dawson took the seats on either side of her, just like they planned so she couldn’t run. Nott settled across from the three of them. 

“Hey,” she grunted, not looking up from her book. The iciness emanating from her and directed towards them was evident in both her tone and the atmosphere surrounding her. 

“Were you at the pitch today?” Eric casually started the conversation.

“Yeah. My last class was at two.”

Adolphus awkwardly coughed, beginning to spoon mashed potatoes onto his plate. “Uh, are we practicing tonight?” 

“No. Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff are splitting the only open pitch times tonight.” This was obviously a point of contention for her. 

“Tomorrow then?”

Natalie sighed, flicking the book shut and glancing between the two of them. “What do you want? You obviously want to talk. Just spit it out.”

“Well, first, we wanted to uh. . .”

“Apologize,” Nott jumped in. “We  _ all _ wanted to apologize for what happened with Talon, and you finding out about everything.”

She gave him a long look, hand flying up to tug at her blonde braid. “Do I actually. . . give off that energy thing?”

“Yes, that part is true,” Adolphus recovered himself. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“We didn’t really know how,” Dawson admitted, his green eyes nervous. “When we were first figuring it out, we thought it was just because. . . well, uh-”

“Because both Adolphus and Eric have fancied you at some point,” Nott had no qualms about the truth being told tonight. The two boys blushed but nodded their confirmation of this. 

“But it’s not. Abraxas knows about it too,” Adolphus informed her, scratching the back of his neck as Dawson attempted to hide his cherry red complexion behind a goblet of pumpkin juice. 

“I mean, I guess I should have known you two had a crush,” Natalie cracked a grim smile. “Being the only girl on the team and all. But I don’t want this to come between us all and the team. . . or ruin the fact that you two are my best friends.”

“It won’t,” Lestrange promised, before allowing a slight smirk to appear on his face. “Besides, we know you fancy Riddle.”

Natalie instinctively punched his shoulder, which alone made them understand that just like that, this was now all water under the bridge, and her mood towards them had shifted, like the rapid passing of a violent summer thunderstorm. “I do  _ not  _ fancy Riddle!”

“Wait, so, are we okay now — you’re not mad at us? Can we go back to acting like a dysfunctional family? I really want to make fun of you for fancying Riddle and not even realizing it,” Dawson blurted out, making Nott press his fingers to the bridge of his nose and sarcastically snort.

“Yes,” Natalie gave him a smile, “I sort of overreacted to everything too. Talon got in my head. I want to kill him — so I’m gonna need you lot to either hold me back or clean up the mess.”

The rest of them burst into raucous laughter at this. 

“Planned on it,” Adolphus said with delight, giving her a look that had her rolling her eyes and leaning over to hug him — which she knew was what he wanted. 

“Do I get a hug,” Dawson muttered darkly under his breath, not expecting Natalie to hear him. But she did, so she rolled her eyes, released Adolphus, and wrapped her other Chaser into a hug. “Oh. . . thanks.”

“So yeah, we can go back to how you fancy Riddle,” Nott smirked at the glare Natalie shot at him. 

“We  _ will _ figure out what this energy thing is though,” she announced with determination as the rest of the team started filtering into the hall and joining them. Among them was Tom Riddle, who approached the group to take his usual seat on her left. “Move, Lestrange.”

“Why?” Adolphus challenged, enjoying his seat next to her. 

“Tom sits here,” she gestured to the space he was occupying. “You usually sit here,” then she motioned to the spot where Dawson was sitting on her right.

“Why can’t Riddle just sit next to Nott,” Lestrange pointed across the table to where Nott was joined by Pamela Selwyn, his girlfriend.

“Because he always sits here,” Natalie narrowed her eyes at his attitude. “You know that.”

“Is there a problem?” Tom had reached them by now and was standing behind Natalie, Adolphus, and Eric. His face was a stoic mask, which Natalie was relieved about. She elected to simply pretend that the scene in the library had not taken place. 

“No,” Dawson and Lestrange stated this immediately, while at the same time Natalie insisted, “yes, they won’t give you your seat.”

“Why’s Riddle always have to sit beside you, huh, Cap?” Adolphus lifted an eyebrow at her and enjoyed the spark of annoyance that flashed within her gray eyes. “Can’t we switch it up a bit?”

“Yeah, is there any reason  _ in particular _ why you like Riddle to sit next to you all the time?” Dawson jumped right aboard the Make Fun of the Captain Express. 

The two smirked as Natalie ground her teeth together and had to settle with glaring at Nott across the table, who was obtaining as much amusement from the situation as Dawson and Lestrange were. “Tom always sits there,” she tilted her head to her left where Adolphus could scarcely stifle his sniggering.

“It’s no matter,” Tom shrugged it off and moved to take the empty space beside Adolphus, a seat away from Natalie.

“See, Riddle doesn’t have a problem with it,” Adolphus elbowed Natalie in the ribs, watching as she grew more and more heated about the difference in their seating arrangement. It was obvious it aggravated her. 

“He always sits there,” she grumbled but pretended to let it go as Neil Lament and Evan Rosier joined the group and the conversation turned to other topics. Natalie remained unusually silent throughout dinner, allowing the chatter to be carried by the others. Until it was called out.

“Cap, what’s with the long face,” Rosier remarked, not having been updated on any of the situation that had occurred in the dormitories last night. 

“Nothing,” she snapped at him, “I’m fine.”

“She’s mad the seating arrangement is different,” Dawson told Rosier this with a smirk as Lestrange sniggered to himself. 

“Is it?” Rosier glanced around at their setup. “How?”

“Oh, you haven’t noticed?” sarcasm seeped into Lestrange’s tone. “Cap was real upset about it before you arrived. And she’s still mad about it.”

Evan’s blue eyes were clueless. “Why?”

“Because Riddle here isn’t sitting beside her, as he usually does,” Lestrange had an undeniably smug grin plastered on his face. “But we haven’t quite found out why,  _ specifically _ , this upsets our Captain so much.”

“It doesn’t upset me, you’re just being a git,” Natalie grumbled into her goblet of pumpkin juice. The last thing she wanted to admit was that Tom Riddle being a seat away from where he usually sat — beside her — was filling her with a dreadful anxiety. It felt wrong. Everything was all messed up and she felt out of control of the situation. 

“I’ve a theory why it might upset her so much,” Nott dropped his opinion, sounding like a pompous prat. 

“Nobody cares about your stupid theory,” Natalie shot at him, making him smirk as though her reaction did in fact prove his theory. 

“I’d like to hear it,” that it was Tom Riddle who said this made everyone fall silent and turn to look expectantly at Zacharias Nott. Evidently, his theory was meant to be stated as a taunt and not a serious speculation — which Riddle’s request now turned it into. 

“Uh,” he flustered a bit under everyone’s gaze before Pamela very conspicuously kicked him under the table. “Well, isn’t it obvious?”

“No, I really don’t think it is,” Lestrange drawled, his eyes were sparkling with delight. He loved torturing the Captain over this subject because she was so bloody ignorant about her own feelings. “Please explain, in detail, what your theory is.”

“Alright — Natalie fancies Tom.”

“How many times do I have to tell you all that I don’t!” Natalie hissed at them before deciding she would rather be anywhere besides there. Tom wasn’t sitting next to her and that bothered her — but she didn’t really know why it made her so upset. And the team was teasing her about a topic that made her irrationally angry — and she also didn’t know why it made her irrationally angry. She had just made up with her team only for them to infuriate her again. Without warning, she pushed herself from between Adolphus and Eric, not caring how much she bumped into them both, leapt to her feet and careened her way out of the Great Hall.

“I feel like that exit just proves the theory,” Pamela Selwyn had a knowing smile upon her face. 

Tom Riddle chuckled, making everyone glance over to observe his own reaction to the announcement of this theory. “It’s certainly an intriguing hypothesis.” That was it. That was all they were going to get from him and they knew it. Tom was the next to excuse himself, in a much more polite fashion than Natalie, and departed the Great Hall in full possession of his usual composure. 

“He fancies her,” Pamela kept the conversation going. “He’s hard to read, but I can tell. He liked sitting so far away from Natalie about as much as she did. He kept glancing over to eye her the whole time. And he barely ate a thing.”

“I don’t think Riddle’s ever had feelings for anyone,” Lestrange remarked and Dawson nodded his agreement. The prefect was more known for his flawless academic character despite his dark good looks that had plenty of girls longing after him. 

“Yeah, but it’s the princess,” Nott smirked, “haven’t you met her?”


	36. Year VII: Seventh Year Beginnings

Sixth year ended in a whirlwind. Slytherin managed to best Gryffindor in the Quidditch cup, and the victory high carried the entire house through final exams and into the summer. Before they knew it, they were back on the Hogwarts Express to return home. Natalie found herself looking forward to enjoying a few long months away from the drama of Hogwarts, despite her love for the school. She had a particular project to work on this summer that she had been preparing for years.

She had to keep a goddamn mandrake leaf under her tongue for a month. And find dew that was undisturbed by sun or humans for seven days. And then wait for an electrical storm. And make a complicated potion. And chant a spell at sunrise and sunset. The requirements to become an animagus were extreme, to say the least.

But she would not have to conduct any of it in secret. Natalie had informed her grandmother of her summer goal, knowing the witch was going to assist her. That she did, and together the ambitious grandmother and granddaughter duo set aside the month of July to fulfill the animagus process requirements. Fortunately, none of the required ingredients and requirements were hard to come by. And Domitia Malfoy agreed with her granddaughter’s decision to not register her animagus with the Ministry. After all, what was the point of being able to turn into an animal if everyone knew about it?

“What do you think it’s going to be?” Natalie casually asked her grandmother as the two of them sat in the impressive library of the mansion, a bubbling potion on the round marble table before them.

“Sometimes the animagus form one takes is identical to one’s Patronus,” her grandmother was well aware that her granddaughter could cast the Patronus Charm.

Natalie shrugged, fiddling with her long golden white hair. “I know. My Patronus is a thunderbird. But I don’t. . . feel like I’ll transform into one.”

“There are many different aspects to our personalities and characters,” Domitia Malfoy stated, “your grandfather was a comedian at home, but never came near to smiling when he was working. How your magic chooses to manifest itself will be entirely up to fate, not you.”

At this, Natalie merely nodded, staring fixedly at the brewing potion before them and wondering if now was a good time to bring up the other subject that she had been meaning to discuss with her grandmother.

“I know that look,” Domitia smiled, and Natalie glanced up to blink at her. The elderly witch was studying her with inquisitive blue eyes. “Spit it out, dear.”

“Um, well. . . can I see your hand?”

Domitia’s eyes sparkled as she extended her hand, and Natalie reached out and grasped her grandmother’s wrinkled palm. “What. . . do you feel?”

Domitia chuckled with knowledge. “Why, the same thing I’ve always felt.”

“What?” Natalie’s eyes were wide. Why hadn’t her grandmother said anything before? “You’ve always felt that? What does it feel like?”

“Like power, dear. Pure, raw power. It’s a gift — a delightful one, but also a dangerous one.”

“What. . . what do you mean, you’ve always felt it?”

“Since your mother passed and you came to live here, the first time I put my arms around you, I felt it.”

“Do you. . . know anything else about it?” Natalie was eager for information. She stopped fiddling with her hair and let her hands rest in her lap. “And why haven’t you told me before?”

“You would realize on your own in due time,” Domitia gently smiled at her. “Else you’d never believe it.”

“But what else do you know?” Natalie was desperate for anything.

“Only that it’s magic, dear,” her grandmother gave her a soft look. “It’s a gift that you aren’t the first in this family to possess. Cassius’s grandmother was rumored to have something similar. Again, magic can manifest itself in extraordinary ways. Do not fear it. Use it.”

“For. . . what, exactly?” she was baffled. She had just discovered this newfound — talent? — what was she supposed to do with it if she barely knew anything about it? And  _ how _ was she supposed to use it?

“Why, anything you’d like, dear.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


Tom Riddle slowed his pace as he wound his way through the crowded and dimly lit Leaky Cauldron. It was a few days before seventh year would begin, and he was only in the crowded pub because of a letter he had received earlier that week. From Natalie, requesting that he meet her in the Leaky Cauldron at this exact time, at their usual booth in the corner. It was the first letter he had received from her all summer, and her silence prior to that had both confused and concerned him. 

What further bewildered him was that the booth where he expected to find her athletic figure lounging in was empty — save for what looked like a medium-sized cat.

It was sitting on its haunches on the seat of the booth, peering over the table and directly at him. It looked too wild to be a common household cat. Its coat was a blustery mixture of grays and whites with black outlines of rounded splotches dappling its fur. It looked like the tempestuous skyline of an approaching thunderstorm that culminated with the eerie gray eyes that were staring at him. That was when he knew.

Tom slid into the seat across from the feline and smirked. “A cat. Somehow, I’m not surprised.”

With a tremor, the cat morphed into a smug-looking Natalie Borealis. “It’s not a cat.”

He snorted, “it’s clearly a cat.”

“No. It’s a clouded leopard. Know your facts, Riddle.”

“Oh, apologies,” he let sarcasm infiltrate his tone. “A clouded leopard. I should have known the difference.”

“Uh, yes,” Natalie deadpanned, “you should.”

“Was it difficult?”

“Somewhat. The process was annoyingly complicated but I had nothing else to do.”

“Yes, you haven’t written me all summer.”

“Well, sorry,” she teased, “did you miss me?”

“Not at all.”

“You’re lying.”

“I am not.”

“Yes, you are. I know when you’re lying.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do. How many times have I been in your head?”

“Evidently, too many.”

Natalie grinned at this, shooting him a mischievous wink before rising from her seat. She waltzed her way over towards the bar and soon returned with two mugs of ice cold butterbeer. She slid one towards him and then returned to her seat, taking a sip of the frothy liquid.

“Guess what I’m really good at now,” she wiggled her eyebrows at him over her butterbeer.

“What?” he smirked at her playful nature. At least she was in a good mood. He could feel the vivacity bubbling around her, infecting him with its pep and putting him in remarkably upbeat spirits. Though he was grateful for the condensation from the cold mug of butterbeer — it cooled his clammy palms and, he hoped, would slow his racing heart.

“Climbing trees,” she said with delight. “I’ve spent the past week swinging through trees in leopard form. I guess clouded leopards are known for doing that. It feels like flying.”

“And that would be why you’re a clouded leopard I presume,” Tom smirked at her, “I told you, I’m not surprised.”

“You had no idea what it would be,” she shot back at him, though grinning nonetheless.

“I want to see the Patronus,” he told her, taking a sip of butterbeer and giving her a cool stare.

“It’s enormous,” she shrugged, “I’ve told you about it, right?”

“Just that it’s a thunderbird.”

Natalie rolled her eyes, “well, doesn’t that sum it up?”

“Well, I’ve only read about thunderbirds. I haven’t seen one.” The sarcasm and taunting poise was being intensified by both sides as their banter continued.

“Perhaps that’s because they’re native to America.”

“Intriguing then, that one should be your Patronus.”

“I’m quite certain that native country does not affect what one’s Patronus is.”

“I am, of course, curious as to whether or not the magical qualities and powers of a thunderbird would be exhibited by the Patronus form of one.”

“They are.”

“And how would you know?”

“Part of the animagus process requires a thunderstorm. Did you think I wanted to wait on the weather?”

Tom’s smirk was calculatingly shrewd. “That is. . . fascinating.”

“Want to know something that you don’t care about at all?” Natalie raised her eyebrows over her mug of butterbeer.

“You’re going to tell me anyway,” he stated with disinterest.

“Correct. Cato Greengrass. Fifth year. He’ll be replacing Jonathan Shaw as Keeper on the team. He’s talented. I’m feeling another Quidditch Cup this year.”

“That is. . . fascinating,” he repeated his line but with much more mockery this time.

Natalie coughed, having begun laughing while taking a swallow of butterbeer. She sputtered until Tom rolled his eyes and retrieved his wand to cast a small spell to unblock her lungs.

“Uh, thanks,” she cleared her throat and blinked several times before glaring at the complacent smirk that adorned his face. “Shut up.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You were thinking it. I saw it.”

“And what was I thinking that you claim to have seen?”

It was Natalie’s turn to gloat about her undetected Legilimency attack on him. “Lot of thoughts racing around your head about your heart. Why’s it beating so fast?”

Tom stared at her impassively. “I’ve no idea what you’re referring to.”

“I can hear it,” Natalie tilted her head to study him with curious gray eyes. “My hearing’s been amplified since becoming an animagus. So have all my other senses. I can — literally — hear your heartbeat. It’s like this,” and she rapped her knuckles against the table in a quick drum-like rhythm. Tom gazed at her hand on the table for a long moment after that, for it was precisely what his heart was doing within his chest.

“You broke into my mind,” he accused her in a calm voice. His eyes were steely as he watched her squirm on the opposing side of the table.

“Did you notice?”

“Hardly. Would you also attribute that to becoming an animagus?”

“Not sure. Could be something else. . . .” she cryptically trailed off, her eyes dropping to the last few sips of butterbeer.

“You’ve found something,” he knew this instantly, “something about. . . .”

“Yeah, I realize we don’t really have a name for whatever this energy thing is,” she jumped right aboard this train of conversation, reaching out to tap the back of his hand to emphasize her point. She did not expect Tom to grab hold of her hand and clutch it within his.

“That is its name,” he told her with conviction, “energy.”

“That’s boring.”

“Well do you have any better ideas?”

“Uh, not right now.”

“Alright then. It’s settled. Now go back to what you were saying.”

“Um, okay. . . well, I found out my great-great-grandmother was said to have the same. . . energy thing — but that’s all I know. So it could be a hereditary thing, I guess.”

“I see. . .”

“That’s all I found out.”

“If you say so.”

“It is.”

“Alright.”

“I hate when you do that.”

“Do what?”

“Act smug and arrogant.”

“As if you don’t act that way?”

Natalie rolled her eyes and pulled her hand away from his. Gesturing at him to follow her, she rose and sauntered her way out of the pub and towards Diagon Alley.

  
  


* * *

  
  


“Look who I’ve found!” Natalie Borealis exclaimed as she burst into the already near-full compartment dragging a very much flustered but still smiling boy with her. “Greengrass!”

There was a collective whooping of applause at this announcement and the two were beckoned into the compartment by Adolphus Lestrange and Eric Dawson. Opposite of these two, sat Tom Riddle in the window seat. Beside him were Neil Lament and, interestingly enough, Cassiopeia Black.

“Hey Cass,” Natalie greeted the younger girl, glanced over at Lament, then back at Cassiopeia until it dawned on her. “So are you two. . . gonna go to Hogsmeade together?”

They both blushed and Neil began stammering, “uh, she was just dropping by-”

Natalie raised a hand to stop him with a laugh. “I don’t actually care. But get out of my seat.”

“Yeah, Cap sits there, Lament,” Adolphus smirked, “c’mon, you should know that by now.”

“Right, sorry,” Neil and Cassiopeia scrambled to move out of those seats.

“I, uh, told Callie I would meet her later,” Cassiopeia, normally loud and confident, stammered this out to the compartment of older Slytherins, gave Neil one last glance and then slipped out of the compartment and down the train. All the while, Eric and Adolphus were smirking at Neil, who was still blushing bright red, as he took the empty spot beside them.

“Sit,” Natalie ordered Cato Greengrass, pointing at the remaining seats.

“Okay,” he obeyed instantly, moving to take the seat immediately beside Tom Riddle, expecting Natalie to follow and sit beside him.

“Woah,” Adolphus warned, as Eric let out a high-pitched, cautionary noise between his teeth and an air of intense unease descended upon the entire compartment. Natalie gave Cato a blank stare, not having moved from standing near the door. Cato Greengrass looked around wildly, his light blue eyes wide and horrified that he had done something wrong. It wasn’t until Neil Lament made a frantic gesture at him did he understand. He slid over on the seat, allowing the spot between him and Riddle to open up.

Natalie gave him a smile and moved to take her usual seat beside Riddle, who, the entire time, had not glanced up from the heavy book he was poring over.

“We have to go to the prefect’s compartment and instruct the new prefects,” Tom coolly told her when she sat down. “As the Head Boy and Girl.”

“Oh yes. Let’s go now then,” she announced and stood right back up. Tom closed his book and followed her out of the compartment. Once the two of them had vanished, the remaining cluster of boys glanced around at each other.

“So that’s the Captain,” Dawson joked, breaking the sudden tension that had arisen. “She’s a handful.”

Lestrange snickered and then turned to address a nervous Cato Greengrass. “Yeah, you’re new so it’s alright this time, but don’t sit next to Riddle. That’s where Natalie sits. Always.”

“Oh,” he blinked, “uh, okay.”

“It’s because they fancy each other,” Adolphus explained, “though they’re too stupid to realize it. So they have weird possessive little quirks when it comes to the other. Like they have to sit next to each other.”

“So just don’t sit next to either of them,” Dawson summed up.

“Okay, I won’t,” Greengrass nodded vigorously, eager to fit in with the team.

“So you’re the new Keeper, then?” Lament asked with a grin. Though Greengrass was the same year as he was, and the two were already friends, Neil was thrilled he was no longer going to be considered the newest, youngest member of the team. “Welcome to the team.”

“Thanks,” Cato ran a hand through his curly blond hair and grinned. “I’ve been trying to join for years. Now that Shaw’s finally gone — it’s like a dream come true. Nothing against him, though. He was brilliant.”

“Think you can live up to it?” Adolphus playfully challenged, wiggling his dark eyebrows.

“Uh, I hope so,” Greengrass shifted in his seat, “Natalie and I were writing back and forth through August. I’ve played for years. She said there will still be tryouts. . .”

“Yeah, we hold tryouts as a formality and to scope out potential reserves and new players,” Dawson explained with a yawn. “Cap likes to be hard on everyone during them. We’ll probably run laps.”

“But don’t think it’ll get easier after that,” Lament smirked, watching Greengrass squirm.

“Stop scaring the new kid,” Adolphus rolled his eyes, stretching out so his feet rested on the seat opposite him. “Cap’s intense. So is Lament, here. Everyone is, really. If Cap dragged you here to sit with us, it means you are too. You’ll be fine.”

“Speaking of Cap, we should explain some things to you,” Dawson shared a look with Lestrange and Lament before continuing. “You know the first rule: don’t come between her and Riddle because they’re nearly in love with the other but don’t know. They’re also Head Girl and Head Boy so you definitely want both of them on your side.”

“If you need help with an essay or assignment, though, ask Natalie, she bloody loves reading people’s essays, it’s lunacy,” Lament added with a grin.

“The captain goes by several nicknames, as you’ve probably noticed,” Lestrange joined this analytical breakdown, “Nat, Cap, princess, my most beloved Captain, all glorious queen of Quidditch-”

“The last two are jokes,” Dawson had to cut in at the look in Greengrass’ eyes.

“No, they’re not,” Lestrange deadpanned but then burst out laughing when Greengrass blanched. “Yes, I’m joking. Nat, Cap, and princess is it. Only we — as in the team — refer to her as Cap or princess. Cap because she’s the captain, princess because she’s a drama queen.”

“All jokes aside, though, there is a more serious thing we need to let you know about,” Lament announced; the Captain’s protege had broken out of his shy mold and essentially declared himself steadfast guardian of her secrets.

“Yes,” Lestrange cleared his throat, removing his feet from the opposite seat and sitting up straight. Greengrass imitated him instinctively, throwing his shoulders back, his spine rodlike. “If you’ve felt a sort of energy vibe pulsing off of her — that’s exactly what it is.”

“Okay, terrible explanation,” Dawson rolled his eyes, “energy is the right, we think, word for it. Magical energy, sort of. She just found out about it last year, though we’ve known for longer. It’s like this addicting stream of feel-good power that flows from her to whoever physically touches her.”

“Sometimes it’s so powerful that you can feel it just while being in the same room,” Lament nodded, his freckles still adding a juvenile touch to the wisdom his voice contained. “Especially when she gets mad or upset about something.”

“Yeah, if she’s angry — run,” Lestrange said in all seriousness. “Or leave her alone. Do not try to do anything about it unless absolutely necessary. Just leave her alone, she’ll get over it, she just needs to blow off some steam.”

“Then there is the enemy,” Lament’s tone was now ruthless. “Oberon Talon.”

“Oh, yeah, he tried to, uh, force her to sleep with him right?” Greengrass nodded, he was well versed in the events that had happened before last Christmas. The entire school was aware of the situation. “Slipped a potion in her drink, right?”

“Yes, exactly,” Lament looked pleased at Greengrass’s prior knowledge. “He tried to convince her it wasn’t him. He’s the reason why she knows about the energy thing.”

“We treat him with disdain and contempt,” Lestrange proclaimed, once more returning his feet to the seat opposite him. “Along with the seventh year Ravenclaws who used to be her best friends.”

“Oh, wait, I saw them all sitting together on our way here,” Greengrass recalled, “Abbott, Putnam, Griggs, and Talon with Haynes. All together.”

“Really?” Dawson inquired, his green eyes flashing with suspicion. “They were all sitting together? On the train?”

“Yeah, in one of the compartments we passed, while Cap was leading me here,” he tested out the usage of the nickname with excitement, delighted that the other team members accepted it from him even though he wasn’t officially one of them yet. “She was too busy talking about the first Quidditch match to notice them.”

“That could be something to worry about later,” Lament glanced over at Dawson and Lestrange who nodded in agreement. Neil Lament had joined these other two as Natalie’s closest lieutenants on the team. “Where are Rosier and Nott?”

“With their girlfriends,” Lestrange sniggered under his breath, “to nobody’s surprise.”

“You’ll meet everyone else at the sorting,” Dawson grinned at Greengrass. “Rosier and Bulstrode along with Nott and Selwyn are the most annoying couples you’ll ever meet. They’re all probably snogging in an empty compartment somewhere.”

“Maybe Cap and Riddle are doing that too,” Lestrange cracked and the others sniggered at this.

“No, they’re right here, looking  _ so  _ happy to be back too,” Dawson laughed as Tom Riddle and Natalie Borealis appeared outside of the compartment, both looking extremely irritated.

“You won’t believe what some idiotic second years are doing in the middle of the aisle,” Natalie groaned when she stepped into the compartment to reclaim her seat. “They jinxed some of their toads to attack each other and are staging a fight between them all right in the middle of the train. And loads of people are trying to watch, it’s impossible to move on the train now.”

“That sounds like fun, why haven’t we thought of that?” Lestrange punched Dawson’s shoulder, making him roll his eyes.

“Because look how mad the princess is about it,” he pointed out with a teasing grin. Natalie’s cheeks flushed a bright red as everyone smirked at her.

“Well, it became an issue when the toads began attacking the spectators,” Riddle jumped in, his composed voice wiping the smirks away. “We’ve spent the last ten minutes fixing broken noses and even had to retrieve a toad from the inside of a Hufflepuff third year’s stomach.”

Lestrange was fascinated by this story. “Did you have to stick your hand down the kid’s throat?” 

“No, idiot, I used a spell,” Natalie pushed Adolphus’ long legs off the seat beside her so Tom could reclaim his spot.

“Boring,” Lestrange and Dawson muttered this at the same time, sharing a delighted glance between themselves.

Lament cleared his throat, “we’ve been getting Greengrass here acquainted with life on the team.”

“Oh, good,” Natalie reached over to fondly ruffle Cato’s blond curls. Like Lament, she already saw him as the little brother she never had. “You scared?”

“Uh, uh, no,” he could only stammer this out because as her fingers ran through his hair he experienced exactly what the others had been describing to him before. Raw, electric energy. It gave him goosebumps and sent shivers down his spine, filling him with a warm, pleasant sentiment. Once her hand returned to her lap, he desperately wanted to feel it again.

“You should be,” Lament said this with affected ice, making Greengrass pale for the umpteenth time since joining the team in the compartment.

“Leave him be,” Natalie rolled her eyes, placing a protective hand on Greengrass’ shoulder and glaring across at Neil Lament. The other fifth year raised his own hands in defense, but grinned at her nonetheless.

The group spent the rest of the ride cracking jokes and making smalltalk. They seamlessly transitioned from the train compartment into one of the carriages which brought them up to the castle. The weather, which had been sunny and fair that morning, had turned dreary and wet. A steady rain poured down over the landscape, making the Hogwarts students sprint into the castle, or conjure charms to keep themselves from getting soaked through — laughing all the while at how wet the first years would be on the boat ride across the lake.

The group of now seventh year Slytherins took their usual seats at the center of their house table. (Everyone made sure that Tom and Natalie were next to each other, and the rest filled in around them). Their age made them feel like royalty, and to everyone else, they were royalty. Natalie Borealis and Tom Riddle, the rather reticent duo whom the more gregarious group of Adolphus Lestrange, Eric Dawson, Lloyd Avery, Zacharias Nott, Evan Rosier, Neil Lament, Pamela Selwyn, Quinn Bulstrode, and Melania Crouch, revolved around. Now, they were joined by Cato Greengrass, along with Callidora and Cassiopeia Black. The remainder of Slytherin house spread out around this core, doing all they could to gain the attention of any of these older students.

“Lestrange looked at me!” Olive Hornby squealed to her group of friends that contained sixth year Savanna Rowle and fifth year Elizabeth Beckham. 

Savanna Rowle rolled her bright blue eyes at her younger friend. “No, they’re looking at the sorting. All of them.”

“You wish he’d look at you,” Olive taunted the Rowle who was as blonde as anyone in her family. “You fancy him!”

“Shh!” Savanna snapped across the table. “Stop it!”

“Do you think Borealis would go over my essays this year?” Elizabeth Beckham sighed, looking wistfully down the table to where Natalie Borealis sat beside Tom Riddle. The two were sitting so close, their arms kept brushing against each other. Many took this as evidence that the two were finally romantically involved. “It’s like a guaranteed O if you get her to read your essay. That’s what Callie Black told me.”

“I heard she only does that for you if you’re on the Quidditch team,” Olive said as the sorting hat finished its singing and the sorting finally began. “ I also heard that she writes all of Tom Riddle’s essays and that’s why his marks are so good.”

“That can’t be true,” Savanna snorted, “Tom Riddle is brilliant.”

“Does anyone else think it’s funny that the Head Boy and Head Girl are sleeping with each other?” David Hershey, a fifth year, piped up from on the other side of Olive.

“Are they actually dating?” Elizabeth’s hazel eyes were skeptical.

“She’s looking this way,” Savanna murmured to them and this group lapsed into silence. For indeed, Natalie Borealis had turned to stare down the table at them, as though she had heard every word that had been discussed. Her eyes seemed to gleam a spirited silver as she did so, sending shivers of fright through them all. The topic of their conversation was quickly changed, for none of them had ever seen Natalie’s eyes look that intimidating before.

Back down the table, Tom Riddle gave Natalie a searching look. He had sensed her anxious energy since they had entered the Great Hall. It had then increased with the beginning of the sorting. She had fallen silent and kept rubbing a hand over her forehead. 

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” she cleared her throat, blinking rapidly. Tom noticed that her gray eyes looked unusually luminescent. Though whether this was from the candlelight in the hall or something else, he couldn’t be certain. “Is the sorting almost done?”

“We just got to the D’s.”

“Bloody hell. I don’t remember the sorting being this long.”

“It always is.”

She grumbled something under her breath, eyes darting all about the hall before leaning her elbows on the table and resting her head in her hands. Her eyes were squinted as if she was in pain.

“Bets on how many Slytherins this year?” Adolphus called out to them all. “We’ve already got three new ones. I’m thinking there’ll be at least ten total.”

Other numbers were called out from around this group and money was dug out of pockets and placed on the table.

“Cap?” Rosier directed everyone’s attention to the one player who hadn’t come up with a predicted number.

Natalie simply waved her hand in dismissal, indicating that she had no intention of joining in. Flashes of disappointment and concern swept around the table, but they continued their chatter as the sorting dragged on.

The sorting seemed to last a century before it wrapped up. It was Neil Lament who correctly guessed the number of new Slytherins they had this year, with eight little first years squeezing themselves in at the table. Professor Dippet then rose to say a few words to the new and returning students, though it was clear that few within the hall were listening.

“Wave when Dippet calls your name,” Tom Riddle whispered in Natalie’s ear when Dippet introduced the two of them as Head Boy and Head Girl for their year. He knew she was scarcely paying attention to the speech. “Now.”

Natalie half-heartedly raised her hand and plastered a smile on her face when she vaguely heard Dippet mention her name within the hubbub of the hall. It then returned to supporting her head. 

Tom stared at her for a brief minute; while he could still feel the energy she was exuding as always, she appeared exhausted from everything happening within the hall.

Finally, food appeared on the table around them and the student population eagerly dug into the lavish feast.

“So Cap, when do we begin practices?” Eric Dawson called from down the table on Natalie’s right.

“Tomorrow night,” she quietly responded, more focused on the food she had piled onto her plate. She was digging into a pile of mashed potatoes as though it was her grip on the present reality.

Dawson looked confused, not having heard her soft reply. “What’d she say?”

“Tomorrow night, you idiot,” Lament, who was sitting directly across from Natalie, repeated this for Dawson.

“Great, can’t wait,” Adolphus allowed a smidgen of sarcasm to infiltrate his tone and waited expectantly for the reaction from Natalie at his attitude. But it did not come. Natalie ignored his remark, continuing instead to clear her plate of food faster than the surrounding boys.

“Right, well, I told the prefects what to say to the new kids, so they can handle that from here. I’m off to bed, see everyone tomorrow.” Just like that, less than ten minutes into the sorting feast, Natalie rose from the table and hurried out of the Great Hall. Robes flicking about behind her as if daring anyone to run after her. None did.


	37. Year VII: The Amortentia Chapter

It was the second week of classes for Hogwarts’ seventh years. It being their N.E.W.T. year, none of their professors were taking classes very lightly. Nevertheless, Professor Slughorn was deriving great satisfaction in attempting to make his advanced Potions classes as interesting and eccentric as possible. Given that he only accepted those with high marks in his seventh year classes, Potions class for the members of this year was an entertaining way to relieve some of the anxiety that wracked them in their other classes. 

Since advanced classes only consisted of less than a dozen other classmates in their year, most of them were made up of all friends or close acquaintances. The seventh year class included Slytherins; Tom Riddle, Natalie Borealis, Adolphus Lestrange, Eric Dawson, Melania Crouch, and Lloyd Avery, and Ravenclaws; Marcellus Thorpe and Laurinda Bates (it was clear that Slughorn favored his own house when allowing admission to his advanced Potions classes). 

Within the first few weeks of class, they had brewed Polyjuice Potion, Elixir to Induce Euphoria, several antidotes to rare poisons, and had even concocted Felix Felicis, though Professor Slughorn refused to allow any of them to keep it. (He did, of course, stash their results in his storage cupboard under a variety of binding enchantments). He was both impressed and panicking over the fact that the class seemed to find whatever advanced potion he threw at them to be far too easy. 

Today, however, when the few members of this particular seventh year class entered the dungeon classroom, Slughorn was looking ever more eager and excited. When the eight had taken their seats (the pairs being quite convenient for everyone), Slughorn clapped his hands together.

“Settle down, settle down,” he hushed the class, although none of them were speaking. This was a way to calm his own delighted anticipation. “We’ve got an intriguing little potion on the docket today.” Slughorn said as though he had not written the potion name, Amortentia, on the board behind him, as well as listed out all its ingredients. 

“What potion will we be making, Professor?” Melania Crouch asked in a deliberately sweet voice. The other members of the class had to hide their snickers, knowing that Slughorn simply wanted someone to indulge his penchant for drama.

“I’m glad you asked, my dear Melania!” Slughorn sent a merry grin all around the room. “Today, we will attempt to brew one of the most dangerous potions in the world, which many a witch or wizard have fallen victim to.”

At the front, left side of the room, Natalie Borealis felt obliged to move her head from its resting spot upon her propped up arm (she’d had a dull headache since waking this morning) and shared a look of sardonic amusement with her Potions partner, Tom Riddle, at Slughorn’s theatrics. 

Adolphus Lestrange, sitting with Eric Dawson, directly behind Tom and Natalie, tossed a crumpled piece of parchment at Natalie’s head. She turned to glare at him, not at all impressed at his choice of target. He gave her a chastising look, as if discouraging her from finding Slughorn’s antics amusing. (Professor Slughorn, of course, had seen this entire interaction, and chuckled to himself. The Slytherin Quidditch team could do no wrong in his eyes). 

“And what is that, Professor?” Melania asked, right after giving an appropriate gasp of astonishment.

“Amortentia, my dear. The most powerful love potion of them all,” Slughorn swept a hand through the air to emphasize this point. “Not to worry, though. None of us will be consuming it. We’ll simply be brewing — and of course, smelling them.”

“Smelling them?” Eric Dawson repeated as if he thought the statement was ridiculous.

“Yes, Mr. Dawson — smelling,” Slughorn was grinning again. “Can anybody tell me why?”

Marcellus Thorpe’s hand immediately shot upwards. 

“Yes, Mr. Thorpe?”

“The scent of Amortentia is unique to each individual. Its scent reflects what we each are attracted to the most.”

“That is correct, Mr. Thorpe,” Slughorn was practically giddy. Laurinda Bates gave Marcellus an adoring look. The two being Potions partners was a delight for Bates, as she had fancied Marcellus for years now. Thorpe never seemed to want to give her the time of day, except in Potions class, when the two had to work together. They worked shockingly well as a pair, a fact which Slughorn pointed out in every class. “Let us begin!”

The four pairs began moving about the room, gathering the ingredients, flipping open books, and setting up their cauldrons, scales, knives, and other equipment.

“Hey, Cap, think your potion will smell like the Quidditch pitch, or Riddle?” Adolphus teased across the room from the ingredients cupboard to where Natalie was lighting the fire under her and Tom’s cauldron. The class was well-accustomed to the taunting and jokes that went on between the Quidditch team. 

Her headache ensured that she was not in the mood to deal with the jokes today, she shot back, “will yours smell like Dawson or Savanna Rowle?”

Adolphus blanched, because he had no idea how she could have known that he had developed what was turning into much more than a small crush on a shy, blonde-haired, blue-eyed sixth year Slytherin named Savanna Rowle. 

“Oh, ho ho!” Slughorn looked thrilled that romantic attractions were already making themselves known before the potions had begun bubbling. “What’s this I hear?”

“Adolphus fancies Savanna Rowle, Professor,” Natalie dutifully repeated this without emotion as she and Tom smoothly began splitting up responsibilities to make the Amortentia. She didn’t want to talk, she just wanted to make the potion and ignore her pulsing headache.

“Natalie fancies Tom Riddle, sir,” Adolphus was quick to remind everyone of this.

This spiked her fury. She didn’t know why this topic made her so angry, headache or not, she snarled back, “I do not!” 

“Yes, she does!” Eric Dawson jumped into the frenzy of shouting back and forth across the classroom. 

“Alright, alright!” Slughorn raised a hand, attempting to regain control of what was threatening to turn into a screaming match. “Let’s all settle down, now. We’ve got a potion to make.”

Reluctantly, Adolphus and Natalie backed down. Though not without an air of incredible tension filling the entire room. It made each pair of Potions partners shift with unease. 

Melania Crouch and Lloyd Avery were sitting quietly at their table near the back of the class. Melania was calmly counting out rose thorns while blinking back tears. Avery was loath to say anything besides reading the ingredients aloud to her, lest she lapse into sniffling about how much she missed Abraxas. All the talk about who fancied who was certainly getting to her. 

Marcellus Thorpe looked irritated that the Slytherins were once again making their Potions class all about themselves, while Laurinda Bates was sneakily looking between Marcellus and the potion that was slowly taking shape within their shared cauldron. (Slughorn was keeping a close eye on her, well aware of their situation). 

Eric Dawson was shaking his head at Adolphus Lestrange for having started such a commotion, though he was sniggering under his breath all the while anyway, having fully supported such a ruckus. 

Tom Riddle, meanwhile, was clearly exasperated by their antics. While accustomed to the Slytherin team proclaiming that Natalie fancied him, he was no zealous fan of the two rowdy Quidditch players getting into Natalie’s head and possibly compromising the integrity of their potion.

“What?” Natalie snapped at him when he grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand back from dumping several peppermint flower heads into their cauldron.

He ignored her harsh tone, familiar with it by now. “You have to bruise the flower heads. The leaves go straight in.”

“Oh,” she muttered, blinking as if to clear her head. She tossed a dirty glare at the two behind them. Adolphus returned it without hesitation. “Right, of course. I knew that.”

“Did you?” Adolphus had overheard this tidbit and seized the chance to shoot a sarcastic quip at her.

“Yes,” she growled, narrowing her gray eyes which momentarily flashed with silver lightning. Tom studied them in fascination, until the pestle he was using slipped out of his hands and nearly flung the ashwinder eggs he was crushing all over the floor. He mentally cursed the fact that he had grown distracted by Natalie, and consequently his hands had become clammy and even trembled a bit as Natalie’s anger rolled over towards him and seemed to wrap its way around his head. His heart immediately began racing and he had to take a deep breath before making sure he had a proper grip on the pestle.

“Stop,” he forced his voice to sound as imperative as possible without triggering Natalie to snap back at him. “Pay attention to the potion.”

She grumbled at this, whispering to herself each time she stirred the potion as he added the powdered moonstone. “I am paying attention.”

The class was quiet while the potions were finished up, though the tension still hung in the air. Tom was convinced that it was worsened by the fact that Natalie was in one of her moods. He could sense her tempestuousness, it was like sitting beside a crackling bonfire being whipped about by hurricane-force winds. You had to dance around it carefully, lest it blow in your direction. Even Slughorn minimized the number of times he stopped by to check on them, avoiding their table at all costs. 

By the time their potion was complete, Tom had broken out into a cold sweat, and shivers were running down his spine as his heart threatened to break through his ribcage each time Natalie’s turbulent eyes glanced his way. 

Once all ingredients were added, their potion gleamed with a curious iridescent shine. It had to sit for a while, and so the two slumped back in their chairs. Natalie crossed her arms and glared at the outside of the cauldron to make up for the fact that she could not turn around and bite Lestrange’s head off for making her headache worse. Tom, similarly, had crossed his arms and sat quietly, gazing at the empty stretch of table before them. Every so often, he would flick his dark eyes over at the blonde beside him, the same way one would stick their hand over a fire to see how hot it was. 

After a few minutes of this, Tom’s posture straightened and he cautiously glanced over at Natalie because the fragrance he usually associated with her — of electrical storms and ozone suddenly became much stronger. He wondered if, in her squallish rumination, she had found something else to be upset about. But he found, when he stared at her, that her eyes snapped over towards him, giving him a suspicious look. 

“What?” he asked this rather defensively.

Her silver eyes narrowed at him. “Do you always wear that much cologne?”

“I’m not wearing any.”

“Then what-”

“Alright, class,” Slughorn called their attention back to him. “Now, for curiosity’s sake, I’d like you all to describe, as best you can, what each of you smell from the potion you’ve just brewed.”

Hesitantly, most seventh years in the room leaned forward to inhale the scent of the fumes arising from the mother-of-pearl colored potion residing within each of their cauldrons. As strange faces erupted from around the classroom, Slughorn looked increasingly ecstatic to hear their answers. Though Natalie and Tom were still shooting daggers at the other.

It wasn’t long before Melania Crouch let out a sob, scrambled out of her seat and fled the classroom. Everyone watched her leave, fully expecting Avery’s explanation: “she said she smelled Abraxas.”

“And what about you Mr. Avery?” Slughorn swept aside the fact that one of his students had just departed in tears. (They all knew Melania would be alright).

“Uh,” Avery had a blank look on his face. “Butterbeer. . . a fireplace. . . and. . . uh, the Slytherin common room, I think. . . .”

“Fascinating, fascinating — and our Ravenclaw duo?”

“Fresh parchment, the Black Lake, and some sort of flower — lilacs, I think,” Marcellus Thorpe sounded much more hesitant than his usual self-assured intellectuality. What surprised everyone, however, was the blush that bloomed over Laurinda Bates. No one had suspected that Thorpe might harbor similar feelings for Bates as she did for him.

“And you, Miss Bates?”

Her blush quickly vanished and she grew pale under the eyes of the entire class. “Um. . . I also smell fresh parchment. . . and honeyed mead with cinnamon. . . and, um, a sort of minty smell. . . .”

“Intriguing, most intriguing,” Slughorn remarked, though he giggled to himself as Marcellus Thorpe’s head whipped over to stare at his Potions partner as if this was the first time he was noticing her. 

“Moving along, Mr. Lestrange, if you would indulge our curiosity.”

“Uh, sure,” Adolphus looked less than happy to do so. “It smells like, uh, Firewhiskey. . . moss, and uh. . .” he then mumbled something that nobody could hear, save for Eric Dawson sitting beside him. Eric then burst into howls of laughter, falling from his seat and leaning against the leg of the table on the floor.

“He said. . .” Eric choked out between laughs, “he smelled — Savanna Rowle’s — perfume-” this admittance to everyone had Adolphus Lestrange turn a nasty red as he lunged towards Dawson — only to be stopped by a quick spell from Tom Riddle. The two were separated immediately and prevented from beginning a fight right there in the classroom.

“Lestrange and Dawson, out now,” Slughorn barked at them, “and I don’t want to hear of any shenanigans from the faculty.” He wagged a finger at them as Adolphus practically sprinted out of the classroom, Eric slowly following him, still trying to control his laughter.

“Now, Tom and Natalie, m’dear,” Professor Slughorn turned to the last pair in the class. He was a bit put out to find that his two favorite students were sending death glares at the other over the alluring steam of the Amortentia. “Tom, you first.”

Obediently, Tom Riddle leaned forwards to sniff the wafting steam. But all he could detect was Natalie. It was like a ferocious thunderstorm and relentless pouring rain, surrounding him entirely. He then realized that whatever had enraged her enough to intensify her energy was preventing him from experiencing what the Amortentia was supposed to smell like. That was the simplest explanation. He found himself incredibly annoyed by this fact. “I. . . don’t smell anything, sir.”

“Ah,” Slughorn couldn’t hide the disappointment in his voice. “Natalie?”

Natalie tilted her head toward the cauldron, taking a deep breath and frowning. Tom had to be lying about the cologne. Whatever magical brand it was, it suited him perfectly. It was like the alluring salty scent of a cavern by the sea and the enigma of a dark, haunted forest. But it was so strong it overpowered the scent of the Amortentia. A flare of anger went through her, she wouldn’t get to find out what Amortentia smelled like to her, and it was all Tom’s fault. Was this some sort of joke he was pulling on her? 

“I don’t smell anything, either, Professor,” she said through clenched teeth. “Perhaps we’ve made the potion wrong.”

“Nonsense,” Slughorn dismissed this notion, waddling over to their table to determine this himself. Inhaling the potion’s fumes, he shook his head. “It’s certainly brewed correctly.”

“What do you smell, professor?” Tom popped this question.

“Why, pineapple, mulled wine, and warm treacle tart, m’boy,” Slughorn was delighted that somebody had finally asked him this. “Fascinating, though, really — neither of you detect a hint of anything?”

“No,” they said this simultaneously, throwing a furious look at the other, as each of them knew — it was the other’s fault they could not smell the Amortentia.

Slughorn did not miss the dropping air pressure between his two star students. As hostility blossomed within the room, he waved his wand, and all Amortentia in the room vanished. “Class dismissed. Enjoy the weekend.” 

There was not a soul in the room who did not wish to depart with as much haste as possible. The classroom was empty in seconds. Natalie practically sprinted her way out and down the corridors of the dungeons. She was stopped rather unceremoniously by someone grabbing the back of her robes. Nearly stumbling over, she whipped around to face a glowering Tom Riddle. 

She sneered, still plagued by a dull headache. She was certainly not in any mood to hold a civil discussion with him. “What do you want?” 

“What were you so mad about in class?” 

“I wasn’t mad.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Well, now I’m mad at you. I wanted to know what Amortentia smells like. All I could smell was your ridiculous cologne.”

Tom crossed his arms. That was when she realized just how close he was standing to her. She could see the furtive shadows behind his onyx eyes. It was like watching fog creep between tree trunks in a dense woodland. “I’ve already answered this. I’m not wearing any cologne. But don’t think I’m not mad at you. Neither of us got to experience the Amortentia. All I could smell was you.”

“What do you mean?” Natalie glared at him. She wasn’t one to wear excessive amounts of perfume.

“Your scent. It’s very distinct. It smells like a thunderstorm.”

“Like a thunderstorm,” she scoffed, crossing her own arms now. He was close enough that she had to crane her head up to look him in the eye. Doing so was like a tornado had just dropped in the pit of her stomach. Suddenly she was queasy and hesitant over how to formulate words properly. She attributed it to her being irritated that he had gotten so tall over the summer. “That’s absurd.”

“But it’s the truth,” he stared down at her, giving her the distinct feeling that she was a wild animal backed into a corner. “And it overpowered the Amortentia. So whatever it is that’s making you so angry must be serious.”

“I told you, I’m mad at  _ you _ . It’s  _ your  _ stupid cologne that overpowered the Amortentia.  _ Not  _ me. I’m not even wearing any perfume.” 

“It’s not perfume,” he reached out a hand to flick the piece of hair that had fallen out of its braid. “It’s you. . . Your energy.” 

She swatted his hand away from her face, only for him to slap her hand out of his way. “My energy has a  _ smell?  _ That’s ridiculous.” 

“It really isn’t,” he retracted his hand before she could whack it away again, but gave a sharp tug to her hair before doing so.

Natalie scowled as he pulled her hair, growing ever more exasperated with him. He was  _ not _ helping her headache. Why did he have to be so infuriating? Was it his personal mission to aggravate her? 

“Whatever, Riddle.” The twister of nausea in her stomach was making it hard for her to focus on anything other than the crashing depths of his eyes. She wanted to just stand there and gaze into them, watching as ripples coursed through them whenever a new thought was conceived within his rapacious mind. This sudden feeling made her anger intensify — Riddle was causing  _ more _ problems for her. Her head was pounding, and she suddenly felt very overwhelmed by everything, especially with his presence so close to her. With an unexpected burst of wrath, she shoved away his hand that had, once again, reached forward to pull her hair, then brought her own hands up and forcibly pushed him as far from her as possible. 

Tom stumbled backwards from the push, his eyebrows shooting upwards at her sudden physical aggression. 

“So you resort to muggle dueling when I say something you don’t like?” He shot this at her back, as she had turned to march away from him. At his words, she froze, spinning around to face him with bared teeth. 

“Don’t compare me to  _ muggles, _ ” she spat, “ _ they _ do worse.” 

Knowing he had his finger on her pulse, he pressed further. “I suppose you’d have no difficulty doing ‘worse’. Your father-”

“Shut up!” She was yelling now, eyes ignited with a raw silver fury. Tom settled a precautionary hand on the wand in his pocket, not sure to what extent she would go but eager to witness it anyway. “Don’t mention my father!” 

Well aware he was the tallest object in the midst of an increasingly violent thunderstorm, Tom made his next words sound as rash and uncouth as possible. Inviting the reaction, welcoming the lightning strike. He recovered the distance between them so he was again standing before her, close enough to see the thunder booming in her eyes and feel the lightning surging from her skin. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t, he is probably where you got your temper from-”

“I said shut up!” Natalie went to shove him away from her again, but when she brought her hands up, what seemed — and looked — like a burst of white light jolted from her palms and towards Tom. And he was sent flying down the corridor through the air. He landed, heavily, on the stone floor, nearly halfway down the hall. 

Natalie’s jaw nearly dropped from the sudden outburst of energy. She had  _ felt _ the flow of energy down her arms and out of her palms, though had not meant for it to happen. It was as if she was overflowing with a manic, unstable energy that she had to find an outlet for. And her fury had taken charge of finding such an outlet. She had only meant to push him away from her, not jet him down the corridor. 

“Oh Merlin,” she whispered, looking down at her palms as if expecting to see the flesh burned. It was not. Her skin looked absolutely normal, albeit still tingling. For a brief moment she thought that perhaps she had snatched her wand from her pocket and cast a curse, but there it remained, unused. She looked back up — Tom was slowly rising to his feet. She had flung him at least a quarter of the length of a Quidditch pitch. He had gone  _ far.  _ He looked disoriented, as if he wasn’t sure what had happened or why he found himself all the way down the hall. 

“Bloody hell,” she wheezed, becoming very much aware of how raspy her breathing was. Now that her attention was drawn to it, it felt like she could hardly breathe at all. Her lungs did not want to work because her brain was frozen — the headache had diminished to a low thudding within her ears. But she couldn’t tell if it was just her heartbeat. She looked back at her palms, they were now uncontrollably shaking. She didn’t know what to think, but she did know that the last thing she wanted to do was attempt to explain what had happened to Tom when she herself didn’t even know. Tom wasn’t close enough to be able to successfully follow her, so she did the first thing that occurred to her. She turned and bolted away, not looking back. 


	38. Year VII: Experimentation

Natalie Borealis took a deep breath to calm herself, which was becoming a rather difficult task. She was alone, in the Room of Requirement. Her thunderbird Patronus was soaring through the air above her — it was a soothing companion, and its silvery flight was gracefully tranquil to watch.

After she accidentally flung Tom Riddle down the corridor, she wanted — needed — to understand whatever energy magic she possessed, and then explore if it could at all be wielded in a more conscious, deliberate capacity. If it was going to spurt out at random occasions whenever she was angry or upset, it could cause more problems than necessary. 

It had been about a month and she and Tom had not spoken of it. She was currently doing her best to ignore him, still angry at him; that and the fact that whenever he was around her, she felt nauseous and inexplicably anxious. With the headaches she also kept experiencing, it had overall been an unpleasant start to seventh year.

Natalie had been coming to the Room of Requirement for these reasons — and to have a brief respite away from all the bustle and activity of the school, the team, her friends, all of it — since returning to Hogwarts this year. She came every night — sometimes even falling asleep in the Room and waking right before classes the next morning. The Room of Requirement always made sure she woke in time to eat breakfast before her first class of the day. 

She had asked for a quiet place to experiment, and the Room had morphed itself into a large space with high arches for a ceiling. One side of the room was an open area made of brick and stone, the other was covered with a deep purple carpet, and had a plush-cushioned couch and a roaring fireplace. Bookshelves lined the walls here, all ancient titles of forgotten magic.

It was now mid-October, and she had yet to make any progress. She was growing frustrated. She had even poured through the books about rare and dangerous magic in the Room, hoping for some small footnote or blurb about anything that sounded similar to the description she had of her own energy. Nothing seemed to match up.

Natalie sighed, staring into the crackling fire before her. She was sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor, leaning against the couch behind her. She had tried spells, jinxes, hexes, charms, even some curses that would have the professors at the school frowning if they found out she even knew about them. She had made potions, even brewing a small cauldron of Felix Felicis — hoping for some breakthrough in understanding about herself. Nothing had worked. 

The problem was, she didn’t know what she was dealing with. She could not conduct extensive research before beginning this task. So she didn’t know what to do and how to even get in touch with whatever energy magic resided within her; how to make its existence as obvious to herself as it was to others. She did not want to have to resort to waiting until something made her angry and it jumped out of her on its own will. If what had occurred in September had happened to anyone other than Riddle, she doubted it could have been kept quiet for this long. She now realized more than ever, how important the Quidditch team had been in helping to keep everything they knew about her quiet, before even she knew. She didn’t want, or need, anyone else knowing.

“I don’t get it,” Natalie grumbled, tilting her head back to rest on the seat of the couch and looking up to where the silvery thunderbird was doing loops near the ceiling. She adored gazing up and watching the bird twirl and spin its way through the air. It made her feel at home. “What do I do?” she knew talking to her Patronus was silly — it couldn’t talk back. But she needed to think, and talking aloud to an empty room would work.

She just didn’t expect the thunderbird to crane its head down as though it had heard her. Its bright silver eyes narrowing, it dove towards the floor and landed with ease on the back of the couch behind her. She almost thought the couch might tip over, until she remembered that it was a Patronus — it didn’t weigh anything. There, the magical bird folded its three pairs of wings, tucking them against its huge body and tilting its head to look down at her with sharp curiosity.

“Bloody hell,” she breathed, sitting up straight and turning around because her Patronus had never acted this way before, it usually always floated up near the ceiling, ignoring her. “Uh, hi?” she had no idea why she said that — it just seemed like the right thing to say at the moment.

The thunderbird made a soft cooing noise, leaning its head towards her until it was very close to her own. She held her breath as the bird blinked at her, its silver eyes staring deep into her gray ones. Without thinking what she was doing, she reached a hand up and gently laid it on the thunderbird’s beak. 

She expected her hand to glide right through the Patronus, like a ghost. But instead, her hand settled on its smooth beak — and she nearly gasped aloud. The feeling that was channeling through her palm, up her arm, and pooling within her chest had to be the exact feeling that the others kept describing. A warm, tingly sensation that somehow calmed her down and focused her mind. It was utterly fantastic. She found her other hand coming up to stroke the feathers on the thunderbird’s head, receiving the same delicious feeling through her other arm. And somehow, it made perfect sense that its feathers were the same texture as its smooth beak.

“This is what it feels like. . .” she murmured quietly, it was half a question, which the Patronus answered with another soft coo. The sound, combined with the buttery sensation that had overtaken her whole body, made her break into a delighted smile. She was hit with the sudden realization that  _ this _ was what energy in its most basic form was. This was the current of lifeforce which sustained every living creature. This was the source of all magic. Unadulterated, vigorous energy. Energy cannot be created or destroyed — only changed from one form to another. 

And then the thunderbird vanished.

Natalie blinked, her hands held before her, clutching at empty space where the enormous silver bird of her Patronus had just been. It was gone. The energy she was experiencing was cut off, but she still felt a pleasant warmth that resided within her chest, right over her heart. The thunderbird’s last coo reverberated in her ears; she glanced around the room, wondering if maybe it had returned to soaring along the high ceiling. But it was nowhere in sight. A frown crossed her face as she studied the room — because while she could not see her Patronus, she  _ felt  _ her Patronus, as if it were still alongside her.

“Bloody weird,” she mumbled, turning back to face the fire. It was only embers by now; she stared at them, reveling in the feeling that she still enjoyed. It seemed to have gathered within her chest, as if her ribcage was a reservoir of glowing energy. Like lounging in a warm bath or a hot spring. She closed her eyes, leaning back against the couch and basking in the sensation, not sure just how long it would last.

After a while, Natalie grew inquisitive. What were the limits to this energy? Could it be purposefully channeled or utilized to achieve some goal? What exactly could she do with it? Besides, you know, send people flying down corridors when she was upset. Turning these thoughts over in her mind, she instinctively held her hands up before her. Studying the pale skin, the network of veins, the bruises from the last Quidditch practice. She knew if someone else were to hold one of them, they would experience an unseen flow of power from her skin and into themselves. That had happened for years without her knowledge. But now she knew.

Humming a catchy tune to herself, she began turning her hands over, bringing them closer together and then moving them farther apart. Visualizing the energy that flowed from them all the while. The second she wondered what it would look like if it was visible to the eye — she knew. It was the same silvery white color as her Patronus. The same white that had jumped out of her hands at Tom. And the moment she understood that — there was a spark between her fingers.

It shocked her so much that her muscles froze, mind leaping with excitement as she gaped at her hands — and there it was again, another spark. Then another, a few more — and then, a lightning bolt of sparkling silver from her right hand to her left hand, and then back again. She flinched, almost frightened by the outburst.

“Bloody hell,” she breathed, gathering her racing thoughts and focusing intently on her hands before her. As if she was pursuing the Snitch, she tunnelled her vision entirely on wanting to witness the energy again. Holding her hands only a Snitch-size length apart before her, palms facing the other, she whispered, “go,” and was delighted to witness several of these silver lightning bolts dart to and from each of her palms in rapid succession. As they did so, she experimented with moving her hands — farther, closer, around in circles — and the lightning followed. It continued flashing until she closed her palms and it extinguished itself. But she was quick to open them again and will it to resume. She marvelled at the brilliant silvery color of the bolts — and the roiling storm of energy inside her that seemed to be the source of it all. Her hands tingled slightly, but it was a pleasant warmth. She let out a purred squeal — she had done it!

Growing bolder, Natalie glanced up, eyes landing upon the extinguished embers of the fireplace just before her. Recalling what had happened to Tom, a thought seized her electrified mind. With the lightning bolts still flashing between her palms, she turned her left hand outwards and flung her palm in the direction of the fireplace, aiming the lightning that way. There was a boom upon impact — and Natalie was thrown back against the couch as a shockwave vibrated through the entire room, the silver energy vanishing from around her palms as her concentration shattered at the unexpected strength of the surge.

“Bloody hell,” she muttered this again as she stared at the rekindled fire. It had not only roared back to life, but leapt out of the brick fireplace and begun consuming the carpet and spreading to the wooden bookshelves around it. Black scorch marks from the initial blast marred the closest surrounding bricks, many of which had crumbled to dust. She had not expected her whimsical little experiment to be that powerful. But remembering what had happened to Riddle, she ought to have known. At least Tom hadn’t been incinerated. The thought of this power blowing him to smithereens made her wince. Scrambling to her feet, she found her wand — laying on the floor nearby — and quickly doused the fire that had spread outside of the fireplace.

Once it was all out, she tucked her wand into her pocket and remembered to breathe for the first time in a while. Sucking in a deep breath of air, she then sighed it back out. Progress. Finally. She needed to work on the control aspect, but at least she had accomplished something, albeit, a destructive something.

It was almost seven in the morning. Classes would start within the next hour. She needed breakfast or she’d be horrible at Quidditch practice later. Swinging her bag over her shoulder (last night she’d packed it with the assignments and books she’d need for class today), she slipped out of the room, reappearing in the seventh floor corridor.

“Hello, Borealis.”

Natalie froze, stunned by the sound of another’s voice as she came face to face with none other than a couple of people she hadn’t thought about in quite some time. Sarah Abbott and Benson Haynes.

“Uh, hi,” she muttered, glancing quickly around the hallway. They were standing as though expecting her arrival. “What’re you doing here?”

“Well, we've been following you,” Abbott’s voice overflowed with sarcasm. “We figured out that this is where you’ve been running off to all the time.”

“Why have you been following me?” Natalie asked briskly, sticking her hands in her pockets as casually as possible. Apparently, it wasn’t casual enough.

“Don’t start,” Haynes warned, retrieving his wand and pointing it at her. “We haven’t even threatened you and you already want to fight? On edge much?”

“You just admitted to following me,” Natalie glared at him, keeping her hands in her pockets. “Why are you following me?”

“We’ve wanted to know where you’ve been going,” a smug smirk adorned Abbott’s face. It made her hazel eyes narrow and grow dangerous. “We realized you’ve been sneaking all about the castle. Almost as if you’re. . . up to something.”

“It’s the Room of Requirement,” Natalie snorted, “you can use it for whatever you want.”

“The Head Girl definitely shouldn’t be sneaking all about, shirking responsibilities,” Abbott simpered, her right hand dropped into her pocket, where Natalie knew her wand resided.

“I’m not shirking responsibilities.”

Haynes still had his wand aimed at her. “It seems bloody suspicious. Shouldn’t the Head Girl be transparent about her activities? Available as a resource for the student population?”

“What do you want?” Natalie knew these were just two of a larger group that included Oberon Talon and the other Ravenclaws she was once friends with.

“Just wondering, you know, what you’re doing in the Room of Requirement,” Abbott shrugged, sounding nonchalant yet retrieving her wand from her pocket. It lay in her clutch rather insidiously. “Interesting to see that you’re alone.”

“It’s not any of your business,” Natalie informed them, slowly removing her hands from her pockets and crossing her arms. Her wand remained in its pocket.

“I think it is,” Abbott said, “especially since you’re the Head Girl. What are you up to? Illegal activities? Brewing illicit potions? Torture? All of the above?”

“None of the above, actually,” she rolled her eyes, “you can put your wands down. Threatening the Head Girl won’t make any professors inflate your grades.”

“Well, that’s not what we planned to do,” Haynes declared, a vicious grin striking his face, making the hair on the back of Natalie’s neck stand up.

“What-” she started edging away just as he and Abbott took several steps forward.

“ _ Incarcerous!”  _ Abbott hissed, flicking her wand at Natalie. Ropes appeared and tightly wound themselves around Natalie before she could go for her wand. Struggling to stay on her feet to at least maintain her dignity, Natalie wobbled before them, shocked as to what had just transpired.

“What the bloody hell are you doing?” she shouted at them, “get rid of this! What do you want?”

“What I want, well, what I would really love, would be you, out of the picture entirely,” Abbott snapped.

“Agreed,” Haynes took another step towards a bound Natalie.

“What would Hogwarts look like with you gone?” Abbott tauntingly pondered this aloud. “No Head Girl who randomly disappears to conduct illegal activities in the Room of Requirement. No star Quidditch captain who the professional scouts are obsessed with. Less competition to be top of the class. A shot at dating Tom Riddle, who you say you don’t fancy but everyone knows you do. If you actually don’t, you could at least give someone else a chance with him. The ability to climb the social ladder of a school that isn’t obsessed with the Slytherin Quidditch team. But you don’t even care about that, do you?”

“Well, can’t say I do,” Natalie wasn’t sure what was making her calm enough to be so sarcastic. She felt decisively in control of the situation, despite being the one tied up with ropes before the two with wands. Perhaps it was because they had made the first move, so now anything that followed on her end could be considered in self-defense.

“That’s exactly it,” Haynes jumped in, “you don’t care — you ruined mine and Oberon’s lives, and you just don’t care?”

“You’re the one who slipped me a potion and tried to drag me out of that party,” did she really need to remind him who the bad guy was here?

“You treated Oberon like shit that night,” Haynes snarled, “he’s damn near in love with you and you just ran all around the room, ignoring him! Do you know how much that hurt him?”

“Well, I wasn’t particularly inclined to remain attached to the arm of someone who was treating  _ me  _ like shit.”

Haynes let out a noise that sounded like a cross between a growl and a yell, with some sort of curse mixed between them. He jabbed his wand at her, and Natalie felt a sharp pain in her cheek, and warm blood began trickling down from a cut dangerously close to her left eye.

It was this that shattered her cool composure. As Abbott congratulated Haynes for his well-aimed curse, Natalie’s skull nearly burst as a shockwave of pressure rippled through her head and down her body. It was a battle to remain on her feet, ropes and all, as she began trembling. The eye of the storm had passed. A supercharge of energy built within her, begging for an outlet, screaming with a thousand familiar voices to be let out.

“You’re a bloody coward for a Gryffindor,” the insult ripped itself out of her lips, going right for the jugular of the lion’s self-esteem. Haynes’ face turned a dark red as Natalie’s icy eyes stared directly into his, goading him into a reaction. “Hit me with a real curse — if you can. Or did the sorting hat make a mistake? I bet-”

“ _ Crucio!”  _ Haynes didn’t need much more provocation. His wand flashed forward again and Natalie let out a scream. Excruciating pain tore its way through her flesh and she fell to her knees on the stone floor of the corridor, nearly shattering her kneecaps in the process.

“Benson, stop!” Abbott began screeching, she launched herself at Haynes’ arm and tried to pry his wand out of his hand. He maintained the curse on Natalie. “Stop! People might hear!”

“Then shut the bitch up!” Haynes barked at her, and Abbott took a step back, a curious look dawning on her face.

“ _ Silencio!” _ Natalie’s screams evaporated in an instant. She shuddered as Haynes then released the curse, panting to recover her breath on the floor just before them. So much for maintaining her dignity. But she found that that was the last thing she could think about. Her mind was overtaken by a blinding white light as every limb in her body grew warm and began quivering beyond her control. And then the ropes binding her vanished as if by a magical spell she hadn’t cast.

“You idiot, you didn’t take her wand!” Abbott groaned, “ _ expelliar- _ wait, what?” All three of them stared at Natalie’s wand, lying unused on the floor between the three of them, having fallen out of her pocket when she dropped to the floor.

There was a moment in which all were frozen, then everyone moved at once. Benson Haynes, whipped up into a frenzy, dove forward, the wand was close enough that he could have just scooped it up. Sarah Abbott went to cast  _ Expelliarmus  _ again, while Natalie lunged towards her wand, stretching out her left hand to scoop it up — but none of them were able to complete their intended actions. Because a silvery white bolt of lightning energy involuntarily shot out of Natalie’s extended palm — and hit Benson Haynes directly. He was flung head over heels down the corridor in a similar manner as what had happened to Tom Riddle. He landed with a disturbing crack well down the hall. Sarah Abbott never finished the spell that she was planning to cast, because her ears were ringing from what sounded like a booming thunderclap that encompassed the hall just as the light appeared from Natalie’s palm. Her jaw hung open as she stared at a bloodied, shaking Natalie Borealis, who was still on her hands and knees in the middle of the corridor. Natalie looked just as shocked as Sarah felt.

“What the bloody hell?” Abbott whispered, her hazel eyes huge as she stared at Natalie, regret at having agreed to corner the Slytherin trickling over her. She turned to stare down the hall where Haynes was groaning in pain. Then her eyes landed on Natalie’s wand that was still lying in the middle of the corridor, untouched. “What did you do?”

“I- I don’t know!” Natalie pulled herself to her feet, wiping the blood away from her cheek. All it did was smear red all over the side of her face and on her hand. “It was an accident!”

“Accident?” Abbott screamed, “there was a literal lightning bolt! You could have killed him!”

“He used the Cruciatus Curse on me!”

Throwing a dirty glare at Natalie to mask her own fear, Abbott kicked at her wand, sending it skidding down the hall in the opposite direction. Then she ran towards where Haynes was struggling to sit up.

“Oh, shit, shit, shit,” Natalie whispered as she pounced on her wand, sticking it back in her pocket where it belonged. She hadn’t meant to do that at all. She had been overwhelmed by the internal rage, the voices shrieking, the ones that reminded her of her dead parents. It had jumped out of her the same way it happened with Riddle. She had no control over it, hell, she couldn't even stop the tremors still convulsing through her body. So much for progress. 

But this was bad. Abbott and Haynes knew. Who knows what they would do with that information.

Streaking more blood over her face as she dabbed at the oozing stream that was now running down her cheek and dripping onto her neck and collarbone, Natalie, heart pounding, breath coming in quick rasps, and limbs wobbly, decided to sprint as best she could towards the only group of people who might be able to help her with the situation.


	39. Year VII: Situation (Hopefully) Resolved

“Hey! Hey! Riddle, Lestrange, Dawson-” Natalie ran all the way down from the seventh floor to the entrance hall of the building, where she caught sight of her favorite group of Slytherins about to walk into the Great Hall for breakfast. She had to catch them before they entered the Hall. This could  _ not  _ come to the attention of the entire school.

“Woah, woah, what’s going on?” Lestrange asked as she practically ran into their arms. Riddle, Lestrange, and Dawson quickly crowded around her, feeling her state of distress and growing alarmed in turn. 

“What happened?” it was Tom Riddle’s voice that sliced through the chaos that had come hurtling down the hallways with Natalie. He had grabbed hold of her quivering shoulders and forced her to look at him as he studied the blood streaking across her face. His face hardened into a mask as he felt the tremors that were running through her body. “Who did this?”

“You’re bleeding, Cap,” Dawson pointed out, in case nobody had realized that already. 

“Not here,” Natalie shook her head, gray eyes flashing all around as other students began appearing in the entrance hall, throwing curious glances at the group of Slytherins. “Somewhere quiet.”

The four of them nearly stumbled over themselves in their haste to return to the dim dungeon corridors. Tom led them to the nearest empty classroom. Now clutching onto Natalie’s arm, he dragged her in after him, then pulled her close so he could study the blood on her face.

“We’ve a problem,” she said, looking directly at Tom because he was the only one who had direct experience with the newest way her energy could manifest itself. She was also craving his calm presence in the face of her rampant anxiety about the situation at hand. 

Tom’s eyes were growing darker by the second. “What happened?” 

“I was in the Room of Requirement-”

“Why were you there?” Lestrange interrupted. He was standing near the door ensuring nobody had watched them and decided to get nosy. As an extra precaution, he had cast a silencing spell around the room.

“Let me talk,” she sniped at him and the three boys nodded, encouraging her to continue the story. “I was in the Room of Requirement, just experimenting with some stuff.” At this, she met Tom’s eyes and he knew she was referring to what had blasted him down the corridor after their Potions class in September. “When I walked out of the Room, Benson Haynes and Sarah Abbott were waiting for me outside.”

“They did this to you?” Tom’s hand gently touched the blood that stained her face and neck. “Where’s the cut?”

“What do you mean? Haynes sliced my cheek open.”

“There’s no wound,” Tom met her eyes and he watched as realization made her gray eyes burst with silver lightning for a moment. 

“Well, anyway — they confronted me — mad about his and Talon’s life being ruined by the consequences of trying to drag me out of that party last year. Looks like misery loves company and they’ve found friends with the Ravenclaws. But Haynes. . . well, uh-”

“What did he do?” Tom took her chin in his hand, holding it steady, evidently not caring about the blood he was getting all over himself. 

Natalie had to remind herself to respond. She wanted to stand there with Tom holding her face and allow his steady aura to soothe the currents of energy that were still wracking her body. “He, uh, well, he used the Cruciatus Curse-”

“No!” both Dawson and Lestrange gasped at this. Tom’s eyes merely morphed into bottomless pools of black, with something sinister swimming in their murky fathoms. 

“I accidentally blasted him with that magic, same as you,” Natalie whispered so only Tom could hear. The others were too busy going off about what they would do to Haynes for this. “I didn’t mean to, I just lost control. But it bloody freaked him and Abbott out. Especially Abbott. But they can’t know about it, they can’t-”

“You’re right,” Tom agreed. His voice was frighteningly relaxed. “They can’t know about it. Who knows what they’ll do with that information.”

“I would have dealt with it right there but I didn’t expect it to happen, I panicked-”  
Tom quieted her by placing a finger over her lips. Without speaking, he retrieved his wand and ran it lightly over where the blood was beginning to dry on her pale skin and robes. Once he had cleaned it all up, he looked her right in the eye again. “Go eat breakfast. I’ll see to it.”

“We’ll help,” Lestrange sounded murderous, Dawson was nodding in agreement.

Natalie hesitated, she wanted to make sure the situation was taken care of. She wanted to be there for it. “But-”

“Go,” Tom ordered, taking a step back as if dismissing her. “You’re not in control right now. We want to make sure there aren’t any loose ends.”

“That’s why I want to come-”

“And risk having a slip up again? Not worth it, for anyone.”

“I still-”

“Do you trust me?”

Natalie blinked at him, caught off guard by this. It wasn’t a very Tom Riddle query, yet the answer was instinctive to her. “Yes. . . I do. Fine. Fill me in later.”

Tom gave her a slight smirk before glancing over at Dawson and Lestrange. They were impatiently awaiting the word to unleash their fury on the perpetrators. 

“Let’s go,” he nodded at them and three departed like a snake rearing to strike its prey. 

“Where would they be?” Lestrange growled once the trio had returned to the entrance hall.

“Hospital wing,” Tom said, “but save your bloodthirst. There’s one pertinent problem that has to be taken care of first.”

“What do you mean?” Dawson scowled, “aren’t we going to get revenge? That bastard used an Unforgivable-”

“Keep your voice down,” Tom warned, glancing up and down the halls, “we don’t want the whole school knowing what happened. We want to keep this between us and them.”

Dawson nodded his understanding. “Right. Take justice into our own hands.”

“What’s this pertinent problem, though?” Lestrange asked, “did I miss something?”

“They know about her,” that was all Tom had to say. He wasn’t going to elaborate that Natalie had been experimenting with her energy power, and that it projected itself outwards in a lightning bolt of energy that could nearly incapacitate someone when she was emotional. He himself still had bruises from September. 

“Oh, bloody hell,” Lestrange muttered, “did Talon tell them?”

“It’s unlikely they believed him. But now they have proof.” Tom paused just outside the doors to the hospital wing. “Dawson, watch the doors. Make sure nobody comes in. Lestrange, distract Madam Reese.”

Adolphus looked disappointed. “Is that all we do?” 

“The fun can happen later. When they least expect it.”

That brightened them up; devious grins lit their faces. Tom smirked; the pursuit of revenge was giving them all an addictive thrill. He supposed he could allow the two some fun at the moment. 

“How much do you want to sell this?” 

“Entirely,” the two Quidditch players said simultaneously.

“Then Dawson, either punch Lestrange or-”

“Gladly,” Dawson flung his fist at Lestrange’s face without question. There was a crack, and blood began spurting out of Adolphus’ nose.

“Oi, what the bloody hell!” Lestrange groaned, clutching at his broken nose. “Was that bloody necessary?”

“You said you wanted to sell it,” Tom reminded him. Dawson looked immensely satisfied with his handiwork. 

Adolphus spat out the blood that had trickled into his mouth. “Fine, let’s go.”

Tom slipped into the hospital wing, Lestrange and his broken nose following. Dawson remained in the corridor outside. 

Madam Reese was at a nearby bed where Benson Haynes was looking mentally shaken and physically beaten up. He was showing Reese the intricately patterned bruises which had appeared along his neck and collarbone, like a branched spiderweb or a network of lightning bolts. Tom recognized them immediately. He had the same bruises, only not as fresh. It was like someone had taken a very fine knife point to his chest, carved out a delicate design over his ribcage, and then outlined it with blue and purple bruises. It had been sore for weeks, he was convinced that physical contact with Natalie would have helped heal it, but she had ignored him since the incident. 

“I’m telling you Madam Reese, it was Borealis, she shot something at me, it looked like lightning,” Haynes was regaling the healer with this story. It was obvious that Reese did not believe a single word out of his mouth.

“We’re serious, Madam Reese,” Abbott was standing beside the bed. “It had to be some sort of Dark magic.” 

“Nonsense. I’ve healed your broken ribs all right, but no Hogwarts student is capable of any sort of magic that would do  _ this _ ,” Reese gestured to the curiously patterned bruising. “I don’t believe there’s a curse in the magical world that could do something this. . . specific. You can admit you fell down the stairs, Mr. Haynes.” 

When Lestrange received the nod from Riddle, he bounded forwards, attracting Reese’s attention. 

“Madam Reese!” he called, spitting more blood out. “Can you take care of this so I can go punch Dawson’s teeth out?”

“Merlin’s beard,” Reese sighed and bustled her way towards Lestrange. “I can’t imagine why you seem to love fighting your own teammates.”

“It’s usually for a good cause,” Adolphus grinned through the blood and Reese started inspecting his nose. Tom stepped to the side, allowing Reese to work and moving forward with what he was really there for. 

Haynes lay on the bed, looking upset that Reese had elected to care for Lestrange instead of himself. When the Gryffindor’s eyes drifted over and spotted Tom Riddle, they widened with fear. Sarah Abbott wasn’t facing the newcomers to the wing, so Tom could work with relative ease at the moment. 

He didn’t have to speak the word  _ Obliviate _ to cast the spell over Benson Haynes. Just holding his wand loosely in that direction and thinking the incantation was enough. With the spell, he launched a Legilimency attack across the room into Haynes’ mind. He gallivanted through the memories and images he saw, clouding over the ones that contained the incident within the hall — only liquidating the part where a burst of light shot out of Natalie’s hand and impacted him. 

Tom extricated himself from Haynes’ mind without trouble, astonished at how easy it was to play with a mind that was not Natalie’s. Haynes’ mind was like reading a first year textbook at his current age. It was so superficially Gryffindor; everything was simplified into black or white, good for Haynes or bad for Haynes, pleasurable or painful. His biggest flaws were that he refused to take responsibility for any of his actions and had a minimalistic comprehension of cause and effect. Overall, it was a casual stroll through a park, compared to the crawling through a hurricane that Natalie’s whiplash mind could be. 

Memories taken care of, Tom flicked his wand again. He couldn’t remove the bruises and injuries that Natalie’s power bestowed (he had tried on himself to no avail) but he could cast an illusion spell to hide them — to everyone except Benson Haynes himself. 

With Haynes all set and Madam Reese now scolding Lestrange for “not acting his age”, Tom turned his attention to Sarah Abbott. The Ravenclaw had turned to see what all the commotion was with Lestrange. When she spotted Tom, a similar vein of fear ran through her eyes. Seeing it gave him a visceral pleasure. 

It was easy. He simply cast the Obliviate spell again, while skipping through Abbott’s mind as he did to Haynes. Abbott’s mind was like a rancorous textbook written by an author who had stumbled too late upon an important magical discovery and was now bitter about those who had stolen her glory. Tom polished up her mind, removing the bits where Natalie’s energy shot out towards Haynes. 

It was over almost instantaneously. When he left Abbott’s mind, he quietly tucked his wand away and reviewed his handiwork. Both Haynes and Abbott looked like they had come down with severe migraines. They were glancing about as if trying to find a fly that was buzzing in their ears. Their bewilderment and pain were evident. Tom allowed himself a slight grin; all that practice with Natalie was paying off. Then he turned back to Reese and Lestrange.

“-like to scuffle about with each other, nothing serious, we don’t actually hate each other, I love Dawson like he’s my brother, he’s just a bloody git sometimes-” Lestrange was drawling about how he had come by his bloody nose. Reese was shaking her head to chastise the rowdy Quidditch player.

“I fix enough of your injuries from games, I don’t want to see you in here for foolish reasons,” Reese glared at the sheepish smile that appeared on Lestrange’s face. “Mr. Riddle, can you please escort this troublemaker back to breakfast?”

“Of course, Madam Reese,” Tom gave her a polite smile and shared an understanding nod, telling her he knew how bothersome it was having to deal with children all day. She appreciated the look and gave him a warm smile in return. “Let’s go, Adolphus.”

Tom led Lestrange out of the wing, back to the corridor where Dawson stood on guard.

Eric glanced between the two. “Well?”

“They’ll find they remember the situation quite differently now,” Tom said, continuing to stroll away from the wing and back towards the Great Hall for breakfast. 

“And my nose is fixed,” Lestrange informed his best friend. “No thanks to you.”

Dawson’s green eyes glinted with amusement. “It was necessary. And I really wanted to do it.”

“We’re gonna actually get back at them, though, right?” Adolphus dropped his voice, watching Riddle closely as they strolled through the halls. 

“Of course,” Tom said with so much nonchalance that the two decided to drop the subject. They knew they would be privy to whatever was brewing behind his black eyes. 

When they arrived back at the Hall, they found Natalie sitting with Neil Lament and Cato Greengrass, both looking like they were attempting to calm the captain down. Evan Rosier and Zacharias Nott were nearby with their respective girlfriends, sending questioning glances at Tom, Eric, and Adolphus as they arrived. Lestrange was quick to mutter an explanation to the rest of the team.

“Done,” Tom whispered as he took his usual place on Natalie’s left. She was on his right hand side, which he very much preferred. 

This was the first time in a while that Natalie did not immediately move to leave the hall when he sat down at the table. She studied him for a moment, tense eyes flicking back and forth between his hardened black eyes, noting what she saw in them. Tom took the chance to actively study her. In the weeks she had been ignoring him, he now realized what he hadn’t in that time. Dark circles made her gray eyes look much more luminous than usual — she hadn’t been sleeping. Her blonde hair was loose around her face, though more messier and unkempt than he knew she liked it to be. A cup of black coffee was clutched in one hand, the other held a fork that was automatically attacking the full plate of food before her. 

“Are you two really going to give each other puppy-love eyes before us all and then claim you don’t fancy the other?” Adolphus Lestrange popped this, breaking the spell that held them captive by the other’s gaze.

“Yes,” Natalie tonelessly replied, rising from her seat and swinging her bag over her shoulder. “I’ll see you all in class.”

Tom wasn’t letting her get away so easily. She had ignored him for weeks, he decided that ended now. Moving quickly, he followed after her. 

Once they were out of the Great Hall and in the empty corridors of the school, Natalie addressed his presence beside her. “Was it hard? Wiping their minds?”

“Not at all.”

“It was an accident, you know.” The intonation of her voice told Tom that she wasn’t just speaking about Haynes, but what had occurred after that Potions class in September. “It just sort of. . . happened. Without my control. I didn’t know I could even do that.”

“You were experimenting with it in the Room of Requirement.” Tom didn’t frame it like a question because he knew the answer. He just wanted to hear it from her.

“Yes. Sort of trying to train it. Ever since that time. I’d just hit a breakthrough, too. I didn’t expect them to be following me. He got angry, then used the Cruciatus Curse, and I. . . I dunno, I lost control and snapped. . . .”

“A good reason to snap,” there was a light element of humor within his voice as they rounded the corridor towards Defense Against the Dark Arts. “But I don’t think you should train alone anymore.”

“I like being away from everything and everyone sometimes.”

Tom paused, snagging the sleeve of her robes and turning her to face him. All humor vanishing from his voice. “Look at what just happened.”

Natalie scowled up at him. “I know. But-”

He released her robes and began walking again. Natalie hurried to keep pace with his long strides. “But nothing. I’ll come with you tonight.”

“What if I don’t want you to come?”

“Then I guess I’d have to challenge you to duel.”

“I would win.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“I just blasted you down the hall last month.”

“Obviously a real duel would not allow that.”

“Well, apparently, all it takes is for something or someone to upset me and it does whatever it wants.”

“You should work on that.”

“I’m trying.”

“I’ll help.”

“You’re not gonna give me a choice here, are you.”

“No.”

“Fine,” Natalie huffed in defeat. She figured Tom might come in useful anyway. “After practice tonight. Meet outside the common room.”


	40. Year VII: A Joint Venture

“You’re late,” Tom Riddle pointed this out as Natalie finally slipped out of the Slytherin common room an hour after Quidditch practice had ended.

“Yeah, yeah,” she dismissed this, not pausing to greet him. Only his long legs allowed him to keep up with her quick pace. 

Tom flashed an eye over the fluffy gray robe she was wrapped in; she wasn’t even wearing shoes, just thick woolen socks. “Are you planning on sleeping in the Room of Requirement?” 

“Sometimes I do,” she grunted a reply and they walked in steady silence the rest of the way to the seventh floor. The second Natalie rounded the corner to the blank stretch of wall that held the door to the Room of Requirement, she froze in her tracks. Tom, however, spotting the same few people that Natalie had, continued forward.

“Good evening, Talon,” he greeted the seventh year Gryffindor who was so problematic. Oberon Talon was accompanied by Thaddeus Fawley and Andrew Osborne, two other seventh year Gryffindors. “Enjoying a nighttime stroll?”

“Looks like you two are,” Andrew Osborne sent a glare at both Tom and Natalie from under the fringes of his long blond hair. 

Tom remained impassive; he was the authority figure here therefore he was in charge of the situation. “What are Gryffindors like you doing at a place like this?” 

“We could ask the same of you two,” Oberon Talon crossed his arms, fellow Gryffindors on either side of him. All looking rather defensive. 

“As Head Boy — and Head Girl,” Tom gestured to where Natalie stood a few paces back. “We’ve every right to guard the halls of the school at night. Whereas, for someone with your. . . record. . . it might be considered. . . unwise. We wouldn’t want to think that you are. . . ah, engaging in questionable activities.”

Thaddeus Fawley scoffed at this. “Funny, that’s what Abbott said you were up too. Especially  _ her. _ ” He shot an accusing finger at Natalie and Tom glimpsed anger flash within her eyes. It would be less than ideal — a headache, really — if she lost control and exploded in front of them.

“Perhaps Abbott is imagining things,” Tom stepped so he was blocking Natalie’s view of the Gryffindors. Her potential to simmer over into fury was seeping into the air like a poisonous current that could — and would — hijack his own, and possibly others’ emotions. This was not the place for a hot-blooded detonation. 

“Sarah and Benson have been telling us some pretty interesting stories,” Oberon said, “ _ perhaps _ either of you would care to agree or disagree with them?”

“We would not, unfortunately,” Tom kept his voice dry, “now, I’m going to have to ask you to return to Gryffindor tower or I’ll have to explain to Headmaster Dippet that the Head Boy and Girl came across three Gryffindors wandering the halls past curfew. I’m sure Gryffindor house would be quite upset if two of their star Quidditch players were banned from participating in the upcoming game because they were found to be in. . . contentious company. . . .” Tom eyed Thaddeus Fawley and Andrew Osborne, Gryffindor Seeker and Beater respectively. 

Threatening Quidditch did the trick. Fawley shot a dirty look at Tom, then at Natalie before turning and trudging off down the hall. Osborne dutifully on his captain’s tail. Talon lingered a moment longer before shaking his head at the two Slytherins and following his housemates.

Once they were well away, Natalie finally spoke. “I don’t like that they were here. They’re suspicious.”

“They have no evidence of anything. They’re the ones who look suspicious, following you around everywhere.”

“They’ll do something,” she muttered, turning her attention to the blank stretch of wall. Immediately, a door appeared. She approached and tugged it open, slipping into the Room of Requirement with Tom on her heels. The Room was set up as it usually was when she fled there. Half an empty space, half a comfortably furnished reading and research area with a fireplace. Flames popped to life upon their entering. Natalie watched them flicker for a moment, recalling how she had destroyed the fireplace just that morning. It seemed like a lifetime ago. 

“This is where you’ve been coming,” it was not a question from Tom. He marvelled at the ability of the school to craft itself into whatever the asker required.

“Yes,” Natalie retrieved her wand from her pocket and flicked it, aiming up at the ceiling. From the tip of her wand, her Patronus burst. The silvery white thunderbird erupted with a coil of wings and claws, soaring towards the ceiling to float among the high rafters. Natalie smiled at its appearance. After it had vanished earlier, she was afraid it would not reappear. But her fear was unfounded, and now she shivered with a deeper, more intimate connection between herself and the thunderbird. It was a part of her soul, a silver expression of her inner mind, twirling up near the ceiling with casual grace. 

Tom couldn’t help himself when the thunderbird appeared. He had never seen her Patronus before; now that he did, it made perfect sense. The silver lightning, the thunderous temper, the soaring ambition, the cyclonic energy. “Ah. . . .”

“Are you. . . in awe?” Natalie gave him a mischievous glance before moving to stand behind the couch, facing away from the fireplace and looking down towards the far end of the room. The side that was empty — there was nothing for her to damage there.

“Magic has always been captivating,” Tom said this with simplicity, as though she ought to have known that. She certainly did. 

“Right, well, this is the first time I’ve actively attempted to summon the energy like I did earlier, so stand. . . not in front of me.” She stared at him as he made his way around the room. He stood just to the right of the couch, on Natalie’s left and watched with suppressed curiosity as she gazed down at her hands. 

This continued for what must have been hours. The thunderbird swooping overhead, and Tom watching as Natalie silently studied her palms. 

“In case you haven’t noticed,” Natalie finally began, not bothering to look at Tom. “I have no idea what I’m doing.” She said this partly because she did not want to admit that having him standing nearby, observing everything, was making her nauseous. She had hoped having him there would help her concentrate, but all she could think of was what if she made herself look like a fool in front of him? 

She could hear the smirk in his voice. “I did notice.”

“I just. . . can’t focus.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, if I knew, I would have fixed the problem,” she layered on the sarcasm, growing annoyed by him now.

“Sounds like an excuse.”

Natalie whirled around, sending him a dirty look. He watched her with feigned innocence. “I’m still mad at you.”

“For what?”

“That Potions class in September,” she spat, “and your stupid cologne overpowering the Amortentia, deliberately making me angry, and then bringing my  _ father _ into it all.”

“Maybe if I upset you again, you’ll be able to focus.”

“Shut up, Riddle,” Natalie crossed her arms and glared. Her thunderbird Patronus dropped downwards and settled on the couch just behind her and next to Tom. It gave him a look that was eerily similar to the one on Natalie’s face. 

“I would like to remind you that it was  _ you _ who overpowered the Amortentia for  _ me  _ that day. And I was not wearing cologne, we’ve discussed this.”

“I wasn’t wearing perfume.”

Tom sighed, he knew it was going to be difficult to explain what made sense to him. “Your energy. . . has a distinct scent to it, that’s now associated with yourself. It, quite literally, is a thunderstorm.” He gestured to her thunderbird Patronus because, to him, that was the epitome of his explanation. That was all it needed to make it clear. Her Patronus — the essence of one’s soul — was a thunderbird. That was so incredibly  _ her.  _ Something about it felt so inherently  _ right. _ And to be alone with her in the Room of Requirement, late at night, watching as she struggled to make sense of the gifts she’d been given, was exactly where he — and she — were supposed to be. He didn’t know why this was, just that it was. And that was all that mattered. It was as if the universe itself was approving of whatever path they were both blindly hurtling down. 

“That sounds ridiculous.” Her response jolted Tom; for a brief moment he thought she may have heard all of his prior thoughts — and was horrified at how advanced her Legilimency had become without his knowledge. Then he realized she was merely referring to his statement about scent and thunderstorms.

“Well,” an idea struck Tom’s brain as if Natalie’s lightning energy had flashed towards him again. “I suppose there’s only one way to resolve that ongoing issue.”

Natalie blinked, taken aback by his sudden change in tone from mildly aggressive to aggressively determined. “What?”

“The Room of Requirement grants the asker whatever is required,” Tom turned, looking about until he found what he was searching for. He crossed the room and stood before the empty cauldron and table of potions ingredients and supplies.

“What are you doing?” Natalie hesitantly followed Tom. The cauldrons and ingredients had appeared because Tom needed them, but making a potion was certainly not what she had planned to do this night. 

“We’re going to make Amortentia again so you can shut up about that Potions class,” Tom said, moving straight ahead to dealing with the ingredients.

“ _ You’re _ going to,” Natalie elected instead to take a seat on the couch. She sprawled out on the plush cushions, resting her elbow on her knee and raising her right arm before her so she could continue experimenting. Tom ignored her, concentrating intently on his own task. Occasionally, her eyes would drift past her palm and she would lazily watch the deftness of Tom’s hands as he chopped, added, and stirred the ingredients; or how his charcoal eyes flashed about with an assiduous focus. Then she would narrow her vision on the palm of her own hand and attempt to voluntarily summon the charged energy.

Over an hour must have passed before Natalie finally exclaimed, “got it!” as a spark of silvery lightning flashed between her fingers. At the same time, Tom announced, “done.” and took a step back from the luminescent shine of the completed Amortentia. 

The two stared at each other for a moment, studying the other’s accomplishment until the sparks flashing on Natalie’s hand vanished. 

“Well, what’s it smell like to you?” she asked him, not moving from the couch. She was too far away from the cauldron for him to blame it on her again. 

“Smell it yourself,” was Tom’s response.

She glared at him, but rose from the couch nonetheless. Tom took several steps away so he was out of range. Natalie approached the steaming cauldron and inhaled deeply. Then she whipped around to send a wrathful look at Tom Riddle. 

“What did you do to it?”

“What? Nothing.”

“Well then why does it smell like — wait. . . no, no, no, no-”

“What do you smell?”

“What do  _ you  _ smell?”

Tom fell silent. By now the two were standing on opposing sides of the cauldron, shooting indignant looks over it, as if they had each ruined the other’s plans. The air turned thick and seemed to crackle with something fierce yet unspoken. It got caught in their lungs and held their tongues captive. Tom’s words were choked out, a supreme effort of willpower in the face of a looming tempest. “Thunderstorms. Raw energy. Power. . . . You.”

Natalie stared at Tom Riddle as if seeing him for the very first time. Silence consumed the space between them, save her ragged breathing and the roaring that crescendoed within her ears. Something was swirling within her, engorging and engulfing, it encroached upon the edges of her mind and made her every limb tremble in the maw of its growing potency. It was going to need an outlet very soon. 

“I think. . . you should leave,” she whispered this softly, but Tom heard every syllable. He observed her with inquisitive dark eyes until the cauldron between the two of them burst, sending waves of Amortentia throughout the room, amplifying the divine fragrance each of them was enthralled in. “ _ Now _ .”

The pressure in the room dropped. Tom’s ear’s painfully popped as the thunderbird Patronus, swooping about the ceiling, flickered out of existence and Natalie’s eyes then flashed with its same silvery essence. The sloshing Amortentia seeped into the carpet, taking the fragrances with it. Its disappearance restored a few shreds of Tom’s self-control. With one last look at the hurricane that Natalie was morphing into, threatening to drag him into its churning maelstrom, he turned and darted out of the room. 


	41. Year VII: Admittances and Advice

“Lestrange. Dawson. Stay a minute.” Natalie beckoned the two to remain on the pitch once Quidditch practice had come to an end. It was the final practice before their first game, and for the sake of their stamina against Gryffindor tomorrow, it had been shorter than usual. The rest of the team was dismissed and the two Chasers stood before their captain.

“More strategy for tomorrow?” Dawson asked, flicking a stray piece of caramel hair out of his eyes. 

“No,” Natalie said, “this is, uh, a more personal. . . problem that I wanted to talk to you two about.”

“Has Talon’s gang been bothering you again?” Lestrange grew angry; Oberon Talon, Benson Haynes, and Sarah Abbott had somehow all ended up in the hospital wing last week under circumstances that were shrouded in mystery except to a few select Slytherins. The blabbering by this group of Gryffindors and the Ravenclaw were, of course, written off as owing to magic gone wrong and not believed by any.

“No, no,” she shook her head, holding a hand up in a calming gesture. “It’s just. . . I’ve realized something that you two were right about.”

“Oh, really?” Adolphus shared a smug look with Dawson. “And what is that?”

Natalie knew her face had to be bright red by now. She could feel the blood rushing to it. “Okay. . . uh, well, you were right. The problem is. . . I. . . um, I do. . . fancy Riddle.”

Eric stared at her as if she had gone mental and Adolphus slapped a hand to his face.

“You’re calling that a problem?”

“It is a problem!” Natalie insisted, “I don’t know what to do!”

Lestrange handed Dawson his broom, needing both hands for the theatrical display he intended to carry out with this information. “So, let’s see here. Let me see if I’ve got this straight. We — as in, myself, Dawson, and everyone else, have been trying to tell you for ages that you fancy him and it’s not until today, the day before the first match of the year, against Gryffindor, that you realize you actually do fancy the bloke. And so you decide to confide in us, your closest friends, about this realization — and state it as a problem?”

Natalie did not look pleased with his little performance in mockery of what she saw as a serious personal issue. “Yes, that is what happened,” she growled at him. “Don’t look so smug. This is now your problem too. Both of you.”

“How is you panicking over fancying Riddle  _ our  _ problem?” Adolphus groaned, “just go on a date with him. Snog. Shag. Get married. Have a kid. It’s easy.”

“It’s not  _ easy, _ ” Natalie spluttered, “I don’t just. . . ‘fancy’ people. I don’t like it, it’s distracting!”

“Yeah, Adolphus can’t seem to find his mouth with his fork when Savanna Rowle walks into the Great Hall,” Dawson had to fit in a gibe. “Must be real bloody distracting having Riddle around  _ all  _ the time.”

“Shut up!” Lestrange snatched his broom back from a sniggering Dawson.

“Stop joking around,” Natalie scolded them, “this is serious. I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, what do you want  _ us  _ to do?” Dawson attempted to sound as grave as he could, but the goofy grin on his face made him drastically fail. He found this whole situation hysterical.

Natalie gave him a sharp glare. “I. . . I don’t actually know. I don’t know what to do myself. If I do actually fancy him, that is.”

“You just admitted you do,” Lestrange rolled his eyes at the captain. “Having second thoughts about how much you love him?”

“I don’t know what to do about it,” Natalie felt the winds of irritation begin to change direction. Maybe talking to these two wasn’t the best idea. They didn’t seem to understand what she was trying to communicate. Riddle was like her business partner. There couldn’t be any more feelings between them besides amiable collaboration, or else they wouldn’t be able to get anything done, right? She continued on, much more harshly than before. “I can’t  _ love  _ him. I don’t love him. I. . . I don’t  _ want  _ to love him.”

“Woah, getting intense here, Cap,” Dawson froze, all smug humor had evaporated from the two boys as they watched Natalie. Something insidious was whirling behind her gray eyes, threatening to seize control and unleash a rainstorm of buried memories. “You alright?”

“Yeah, fine,” Natalie grumbled, attempting to restrain the storm. “Just. . . um, thinking about my parents. I’m fine. Back to the problem. What do I do?”

Adolphus elected to tread carefully to avoid the burgeoning tempest. “Well, uh, what do you want to do?” 

“I wanna win the Cup this year.”

“I mean about Riddle.”

“Oh. . . I dunno.”

“What if you went up and snogged him right now?”

“Dawson!” Natalie’s eyes flashed a warning at the sandy-haired Chaser, who took an instinctive step back. “I absolutely cannot do that!”

Lestrange sighed, “can we at least head to dinner? I’m cold and it’s dark.”

“Oh, yeah,” Natalie agreed, leading the two into the locker rooms while Dawson mimicked Lestrange’s complaints about the cold and dark in a high-pitched, babyish tone of voice. 

“So, what do I do?” Natalie began again as they followed her through the Captain’s Corridor shortcut up to the castle. “How do I make it so I’m not distracted?”

“Easy,” Lestrange remarked, “snog him.”

She made an exasperated noise, “I can’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“Um, I don’t know, I just know I can’t.”

“Sounds like someone’s in denial.”

Dawson guffawed at this. “She’s been in denial for years, mate.”

“Well, how do I make it go away? I don’t want to fancy him anymore. Can I just make it stop?” She was becoming frustrated. They were not offering any viable solutions to this problem. Now that she knew her own feelings were the culprit, she couldn’t continue to hold her breath and clench all her muscles whenever Tom Riddle sat next to her. “Didn’t you lot fancy me at one point? How did you make that go away?”

“That’s not how it works, Cap,” Lestrange rolled his eyes.

“Well, Adolphus fancies Rowle now,” Dawson explained with a smirk, “and he’s bloody scared of you.”

“Dawson still fancies you but he knows you and Riddle fancy each other so he’s being respectful while also making everything into a joke to deal with his own feelings,” Lestrange aggressively interjected this, making Eric furiously shove him into the wall of the subterranean tunnel.

“Stop fighting,” Natalie snapped at them. She wanted silence so she could churn their words over in her mind. Finally speaking once they reached the end of the tunnel. “So. . . if I, or Riddle, fancy someone else, I won’t fancy him anymore? Everything can remain normal?”

“Uh, no, no that’s not how it works,” Lestrange said as they followed her through the stone wall and appeared in the corridor of the school. “I don’t advise it.”

“Well it seems to be the only piece of advice you’ve given me that makes logical sense,” Natalie steamed, “so unless you have anything better-”

“Snog him.”

“Dawson!” she whirled towards him at this repeated suggestion, sparks glinting within her eyes. The two Chasers could feel her exasperated fury emanating in the corridor. It seemed to bounce off the walls and amplify itself like soundwaves of thunderous wrath. It ignited both fear and anger within the other two Slytherins. 

“You asked us what to do, we’re just trying to help,” Dawson began to challenge her, though Lestrange clapped a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back. The remaining glimpse of his rational mind told him that the last thing they wanted to do was start a fight amongst the team the night before the match against Gryffindor.

“Calm down, Cap,” Adolphus said, “we’ll talk about it later. Let’s first deal with the game tomorrow, alright?”

“Right,” Natalie deflated and the corridor seemed to stabilize. Dawson and Lestrange relaxed, their own jumpstarted emotions sizzling out. “Finally, a rational statement. Thanks Adolphus.”

The trio walked in silence until they arrived at the Great Hall, where dinner was still being served. Evan Rosier, Zacharias Nott, Neil Lament, Cato Greengrass, Tom Riddle, Pamela Selwyn, Quinn Bulstrode, Melania Crouch, Cassiopeia Black, and Callidora Black were all awaiting the arrival of the trio. Savanna Rowle, Elizabeth Beckham, Olive Hornby, and David Hershey were also sitting near this collection of Slytherins, having gradually moved down the table towards them since the year began. 

“I actually, uh, have to meet with Dippet right now,” Natalie excused herself from entering the hall to join everyone else. “Head Girl stuff. See you tomorrow morning.” She darted off before they had a chance to protest.

“It’s because Riddle’s here,” Lestrange snickered as he and Dawson headed towards the table. “She’s panicking.”

“Duh,” Dawson snorted, “she’s bloody horrible at feelings.”

“Lestrange, Dawson,” Tom Riddle called out to them as they arrived at their usual seats. He pointed at the spot where Natalie usually sat, on his right. “Sit here.”

Adolphus raised an eyebrow but took the seat without question, Dawson following. Without Natalie sitting amongst them all, the energy at the table seemed vague and superficial. Nobody seemed intent on carrying out a rowdy conversation that involved the entire group. 

“Where’s Cap?” Neil Lament asked the two as they began loading their plates. “She alright?”

“Yeah, she’s fine,” Dawson replied through a mouthful of mashed potatoes. Now that Natalie was gone, he found himself oddly irritated about everything. “Just having some personal problems. Nothing too serious, but you know how she is.”

“Allegedly she has a meeting with Dippet right now. Head Girl stuff,” Adolphus sniggered. “Her personal problems are giving her a lot of grief.”

Lament looked concerned. “Does she need help?”

“The help she needs is very specific and the kind which none of  _ us  _ can give her,” Adolphus had laughter on the edges of his voice. Dawson was ready to choke on his food. 

“Oh,” Lament frowned, “well. . . it’s not like her to miss dinner the night before a game.”

“No, it’s not,” Adolphus agreed, his eyes roving down the table to meet the bright blue gaze of Savanna Rowle. Her face blushed pink and she hid her eyes under a wave of blonde hair. Adolphus found that the piece of steak on his fork had hit him in the side of his face.

“Distracted, are we?” a wicked grin appeared on Eric’s face. Seeing Adolphus act like a bumbling fool always made him feel better.

“At least I can deal with my feelings,” Lestrange hissed to Dawson, keeping his voice down so nobody else could hear. He would prefer to avoid being singled out in front of the entire team tonight. “I’m gonna ask her to Hogsmeade after the game tomorrow.”

“Who’re you asking to Hogsmeade?” Evidently, he had not spoken quietly enough. Evan Rosier piped up from across the table, wiggling his eyebrows at Lestrange. 

“No one,” Adolphus hastily announced this as loudly as possible. “I have absolutely no plans to ask anyone to Hogsmeade, ever.” He sneaked a look down the table where Savanna was sitting and saw disappointment flash across her face. A wave of nausea passed through him. He was acting as ludicrous and idiotic as Natalie was with her own feelings. Bloody hell. 

“Really?” Rosier pushed, Quinn Bulstrode was leaning against his arm and enjoying his taunting with a wide smirk on her face. Implying that she knew everything about how he fancied Savanna; it made Lestrange squirm. “You sure about that?”

“Absolutely,” he mumbled, then quickly rose from his seat. “Cap wanted us to get to bed early tonight, so I’m off. See everyone tomorrow morning.” Lestrange hurried out of the Great Hall as fast as possible, Eric Dawson on his heels.

“Wow, you really screwed that one up, huh,” Eric joked, “almost as bad as Cap.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be as bad as Cap,” Lestrange assured his best friend. Once out of the entrance hall, they slowly made their way towards the Slytherin common room.

“Lestrange, Dawson!” a voice called out from behind them, bidding them pause. Neither of them expected Tom Riddle to have followed them out of the hall.

“Hey, Riddle,” Dawson greeted him in a low voice; he found he was back to being irritated at seemingly everything. 

“I’d like a word,” he phrased it as both a question and a command.

“Just one?” Adolphus quipped with a smirk. It vanished upon seeing the stony look Riddle gave him in return. “Right. Go ahead.”

“I’ve an. . . issue. . . which I think you two may be able to shed some light on, and even be of assistance,” he drew out his words slowly and carefully.

“What sort of issue?” Dawson questioned, sharing a curious look with Lestrange. Tom Riddle coming to  _ them  _ for help? He really had to be floundering with something.

“You and others may have. . . made a mockery of the theory that your captain and I fancy each other. . . but I believe this may actually be correct. I believe. . . well, I now know that I do. . . ah, fancy her.”

Adolphus Lestrange and Eric Dawson stared, wide-eyed, first at an awkward Tom Riddle, and then at each other, before exploding into raucous, uncontrollable laughter. This continued for several moments before their laughter was cut off by a spell cast by Tom. 

“Enough,” he looked less than pleased with them. “This is a matter of utmost importance, not something to be ridiculed.”

“O-okay,” Lestrange choked out, “and what do you want us to do?”

“Feelings are a. . . hindrance which I cannot afford,” Tom glanced between them, “you two have admitted to having fancied her before. How — exactly — did you, ah, prevent them from becoming overly distracting?”

“Well, Romeo, there’s really only one thing to do,” Adolphus sighed. He would have clapped his hand on Tom’s shoulder had he not been terrified Riddle would blow it off. “Snog her.”

“Aye,” Dawson found a morbid delight in agreeing with this. “Snog her.”

Tom Riddle looked at them as if they had both gone completely and utterly insane in the span of a few minutes. “That’s. . . illogical and ridiculous.”

Dawson took the liberty to repeat what he had also told Natalie, but in a much more vulgar way. “Well, Lestrange here now fancies Savanna Rowle, so he no longer dreams about Cap accidentally falling naked into his bed.” He was starting to view both Tom’s and Natalie’s requests for assistance in dealing with their own feelings for the other as an annoying personal slight. Though he knew they were both too dumb in this field to understand why. 

Distaste flashed in Riddle’s eyes as he took in this statement. 

“I gotta ask,” Lestrange interjected, “how’d you figure it out?”

Tom looked briefly bewildered before his face returned to its usual stoic mask. “Figure what out?”

“That you fancy her,” Adolphus explained. “Both of you are too emotionally. . . well, stupid, to just realize it on your own.”

Riddle did not seem happy to have the word “stupid” attached to him in any capacity. “The scent of Amortentia, if you must know.”

“Can I have an opinion?” Dawson asked abruptly, trying to sound respectful but, once again, his cheeky grin betrayed him. His aggravation had morphed into hilarity, suddenly everything about this seemed absurdly funny to him.

“Yes,” Tom said this hesitantly, seeing the wild gleam in Dawson’s eyes and knowing he would regret it.

“I think you should ask her to Hogsmeade, and then you and Cap and Adolphus and Savanna can go on a double-date. And then I’ll crash both-”

“Not helpful. . . exactly,” Tom interrupted with a sweep of his hand. His dark eyes flicked over to Adolphus, practically boring into his soul. “You no longer fancy her. . . because you now fancy Rowle, correct?”

Lestrange did not like where this was going. “Sure?” 

“Interesting,” Riddle said this tonelessly before he nodded at the two Quidditch players. “This is, of course, all dependent on if I do, in fact, fancy her.”

“Oh, bloody hell,” Adolphus slapped a hand to his face. “You’re both horrible! Just date, for Merlin’s sake!”

“Well, there’s an easy way to be sure if you do fancy her,” Dawson chirped, sounding rather wicked. “Besides, you know, Amortentia smelling like her to you. If that isn’t a dead giveaway-”

“What is it?” Tom demanded. 

“Okay, well, if I went and snogged her right now, how would you feel?”

“Disgusted.”

“Then you fancy her,” Dawson shrugged, glancing over at Lestrange. An agreed exchange passed between them; Tom and Natalie were too bloody stupid to deal with this by themselves. They were probably going to have to get involved. Dawson then drew himself up to his full height and nodded in dismissal at Lestrange and Riddle. “See you two in Hogsmeade next weekend.  _ With  _ your girlfriends.”

Adolphus rolled his eyes, grabbing Dawson by the robes and dragging him down the hallway towards the Slytherin common room. Riddle remained in the corridor, stuck somewhere between mild dismay and extreme outrage. 

“Last bit of advice, Riddle,” Lestrange turned and shouted back at the Head Boy. “Snog her!”


	42. Year VII: Pyrrhic Victory

It was the day of the first game of the season. Slytherin against Gryffindor. Slytherin was the favorite, obviously. As the defending champion; the powerhouse team was considered to be at their zenith, with the core of the team: Natalie Borealis, Adolphus Lestrange, Eric Dawson, Zacharias Nott, and Evan Rosier all in their seventh and final year. The only question mark was the new Keeper, Cato Greengrass, who had yet to be seen in play by anyone outside the Slytherin team. This fact was certainly not accidental. 

The morning dawned crisp and bright, though the castle was ablaze with anticipation for the match. Natalie Borealis was, shockingly, not the first one awake. She found Cato Greengrass and Neil Lament fidgeting and pacing in the Slytherin common room.

A wide grin on her face, she practically skipped from the girls’ dormitories to where the boys were. All concerns from last night were cast aside in deference to the Quidditch match. “You ready?”

Lament, with a year of experience, nodded. “Yes.”

“I think so,” Greengrass wasn’t quite so confident. 

“You  _ know _ so,” Natalie corrected him. 

“I  _ know _ so.”

“Good. Where are the others?”

“Not awake yet, probably,” Lament shrugged.

“Lie!” a shout came from the boys’ dormitory corridor. “Lie!” and out spilled Lestrange, Dawson, Nott, and Rosier. “Lies!”

“Alright, alright,” Natalie tried to calm their excitement. Though it was no use, her own eager anticipation had her heart racing. She couldn’t keep the grin off her face. It was game day. “Let’s head to breakfast.”

With a whoop, they were off, to the shouted “good luck!”s of the other Slytherin early risers not on the team. The march to the Great Hall was punctuated by their enthusiastic chatter, reprimands from portraits, and their gales of laughter in response.

Breakfast was kept short, as always. All of them knowing they had to eat something but none composed enough to find their appetite. Natalie couldn’t even take a seat. She sipped a goblet of pumpkin juice while standing over Greengrass and Lament, murmuring words of encouragement to the youngest on the team.

“Oh, look who it is!” Lestrange announced as the Gryffindor team entered the hall. “The  _ lions _ . They look  _ lovely  _ this morning, don’t they?”

Laughter from Rosier, Nott, and Dawson. Natalie, however, was studying the squad with narrowed eyes. They looked a little  _ too  _ nervous. Their captain and Seeker, Thaddeus Fawley (today, he was the only enemy of note) kept cracking his knuckles and glancing over at them — but he found his plate of eggs very interesting when he realized Natalie was watching him. His younger brother, Alexander Fawley, (who’d just joined the team this year as their new Keeper) looked so green they expected him to be sick right there at the table. The two Beaters, Andrew Osborne and Miles Fletcher, had their heads together as if hatching an extravagant last minute game strategy and ignored the others around them. The three Chasers, all ranging from second to fourth year; Diana Macmillan, Jeremy French, and Georgianna Goodwin, had a more innocent apprehension to them. As if they were unaware of the true challenges of the pitch. They would be baptized shortly.

“Don’t you three dare let those children take the Quaffle from you,” Lament joked to Lestrange, Dawson, and Nott. He sniggered at the tiny stature of second year Chaser Diana Macmillan. “Bloody embarrassing if they do.”

“They know the plan,” Natalie ruffled Lament’s bright red hair. He no longer blushed when she did this. It was not a secret to him that he would be her successor to the team captaincy. She’d outright told him earlier that season to start acting as a captain-in-training would. He couldn’t let her down.

“Duh,” Lestrange rolled his eyes. The team had all the intelligence on Gryffindor thanks to Rebecca Macmillan, Diana’s older sister and the bubbly seventh year Gryffindor prefect who would spill any secret if you acted as if you were actually interested in what she had to say. They all knew the young Gryffindor Chasers were going to use their size and speed to their advantage, and then tag-team Slytherin’s Chasers to retrieve the Quaffle.

Other students were beginning to trickle into the hall. Some giving the respective team they were cheering for a holler or a cheer. It was in good-spirit, but it increased the tension that was rising within the Great Hall.

Natalie surveyed her troops. “Did everyone eat something?”

“Yes, can we go?” it was almost a plea from Neil Lament. Anxiety was threatening to overtake them.

“Yeah,” was all Natalie said and the seven walked out with as much composure as they could muster. Once away from the peering eyes of their fellow students, the group broke into a sprint, barrelling towards the Captain’s Corridor which could lead them to the locker rooms of the Quidditch pitch.

The team leapt into this secret passageway and shouted, whooped, and screeched their way down the tunnel until they emerged in the team locker rooms. They were already in their game robes, but finished up by strapping on their arm guards, shin guards, and for their new Keeper, his chest pads and helmet. Neil Lament and Evan Rosier retrieved their Beaters’ bats, and then everyone grabbed their brooms.

A solemn silence descended over the locker room as the seven glanced around at each other. The same fear whispering in the back of their minds:  _ what if they lost?  _ It was too horrifying a prospect to consciously entertain. Along with the fact that Professor Slughorn had informed them last week that several scouts from professional teams would be in attendance at this match. (He had hoped to impress them by implying that it was through his connections that they were present, but all it had done was amplify their stress.)

“Alright,” the Captain’s clear voice ushered this dark thought away. “We all know what we gotta do?”

“Win,” Lament stamped his broomstick on the ground, the others followed suit. 

“Then let’s bloody go.”

That was enough of a pump-up speech. They didn’t need anything longer when the air was practically steaming around their captain. Being near her was like soaking in the sunshine on a warm spring day when you could feel the sun’s rays beaming all the way from the center of the solar system just to melt into your skin and send warm tingles of visceral excitement for the coming summer throughout your entire body.

Most of them didn’t remember the walk out of the locker room, the announcements of the teams, the whistle that started the game, and the release of the Quaffle. Evan Rosier claimed he could recall with perfect clarity every moment of each game he had ever played. This was doubted by all his teammates. But everyone remembered the rush of adrenaline, the keening of the wind, and the roar of the crowd.

Natalie barely remembered any of the games. Only the end. She could visualize the end of every game with such precise visualization and detail that it would put Divination professors to shame. But only the parts that led to the catching of the Snitch. That was, after all, the only part that mattered. This game looked to be no different. 

A Gryffindor-Slytherin match was essentially a mandate for fouls and penalty shots. The game turned brutal not long after the release of the Quaffle. Lestrange, Dawson, and Nott had seized control and scored a few goals immediately, to the dismay of Gryffindor Keeper Alexander Fawley. Gryffindor then snuck one past Cato Greengrass, but the rookie Slytherin played with astonishing agility that impressed even some in the Gryffindor crowd (though they would never admit it). 

Bludgers soon came to rule the game. Evan Rosier and Neil Lament were locked in a brutal contest with Miles Fletcher and Andrew Osborne. The crowd started keeping track of how many players from each team had been smacked by a Bludger. It kept them busy, as soon actual goals grew sparse. The teams simply couldn’t get their Chasers to hold onto the Quaffle for long enough.

The Seekers stayed above the pitch, avoiding the Bludger war as best as possible. A Seeker taking a Bludger to the face — or the wrist — would spell disaster for the team. A Seeker without eyes to see the Snitch or a hand to catch the Snitch was about as useful as having a bowtruckle as a broomstick. 

Natalie cruised about, staying away from the mayhem below. There would be plenty of bruises to go around tomorrow. She kept an eye on Thaddeus Fawley. He flew a little below her, towards the Gryffindor end of the pitch. He wasn’t the best Seeker Gryffindor had ever produced, but he still had two eyes that she did not. She had one on him, one on the rest of the game. The pitch was big, so she didn’t mind making use of the Gryffindor Seeker. She knew she could beat him in a race anyday. 

Once, her eyes strayed to pick out the blond hair of her cousin, Abraxas. He sat in the stands with the professors, beside Professor Slughorn, from the looks of it. With them, she assumed, were several scouts from professional Quidditch teams. She had to tear her gaze away to prevent this from getting to her head. The game was all that mattered right now. Not scouts, not her future, not her cousin, not bloody Tom Riddle. . . . The game. The Snitch. The game.

The score was only 50 to 30, Slytherin in the lead, when she spotted Fawley move. He started streaking across the pitch, heading down and towards the Slytherin goal end. Natalie darted after him in pursuit, aiming a little ahead of him while allowing one eye to sweep the landscape. She hadn’t spotted whatever he must have. She zoomed past Andrew Osborne, in rapid pursuit of a Bludger, so she was now directly tailing Fawley. The Snitch must have been near the bottom of the Slytherin goal posts — that’s where he seemed to be heading. 

Except that was impossible. She only caught a blink of it, but she was fine-tuned to notice anything small, golden, and winged. And it was certainly  _ not _ in the direction Fawley was flying in. It was humming in the air, smack dab in the middle of the pitch in one of the most violent games Hogwarts had seen. Glinting silently in the sunlight like a coy little devil. 

Her eyes — and thus her broom — were drawn immediately in that direction. Her vision narrowed, her arm stretched out, hand ready to lay claim to the tiny gold ball. Then the game could end. Then the team could celebrate. Then Slytherin would triumph. 

She didn’t care that she was effectively flying through a war zone of bats and Bludgers and players. 

The Snitch was the most important object in the game, in the sport, in the wizarding world, in her life. 

She needed it. 

And it was right there. 

Waiting for her. 

Fluttering softly and basking in the brisk October sun.

She was almost there.

The crowd, the other players, the wind trying to tear her robes away — nothing mattered anymore. 

She didn’t see the entire school leap to its feet, enraptured by the sudden diversion in the chase for the Snitch. 

She didn’t see the pandemonium this caused on the field.

She didn’t see Andrew Osborne come charging from her left. 

She didn’t see the panicking of Thaddeus Fawley when he realized she had actually spotted the Snitch and wasn’t feinting — like he was.

She didn’t see the Chasers abandon the Quaffle to watch the most important chase of the game.

She didn’t see Miles Fletcher furiously aiming a Bludger at her. 

She didn’t see anything besides her fingers wrapping around the cold metal body of the golden Snitch.

Then all she saw was darkness.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Her eyes opened. She stared. Up. A ceiling. Arches. The Room of Requirement. No. Why? Where?

Her head pounded. Constant pressure.

Close eyes. Sleep. Sleeping? What happened?

Thinking hurt.

Where was she?

“Hey, Cap.” A low voice. To her right. She blinked. Eyes moving. That hurt.

Thinking hurt. Don’t think.

She stared. For a while. At someone. Then recognition.

Adolphus Lestrange. And others.

The team.

Eric Dawson. Evan Rosier. Cato Greengrass. Neil Lament. Zacharias Nott.

She looked. Her head hurt. Where was she?

“You’re in the hospital wing.” Another voice. To her left. Her eyes moved.

Tom Riddle. His face — a mask. Hospital wing?

“She’s awake?” A louder voice. It echoed. It hurt. It rattled. Her head. She winced. Brain clenching.

Madam Reese. She appeared. Looking mad. Natalie stared. Hospital wing?

“What?” Was that her? Her voice? Sounded awful. But — no reaction. Didn’t they hear? Could they hear?

“Horrible injury, really.” Reese said. Loudly. Still. “Foul move on Gryffindor’s part. Shame they got away with it. Look at her eyes, she barely knows where she is. We’re lucky we have magic.”

“She has no idea where she is.” Adolphus. He’s loud. Why? Everyone was loud.

“Shh.” Natalie groaned. Need quiet. Head hurt. Close eyes. Sleep. Be in darkness. 

“We’re whispering, Cap.” They heard her! That voice?

Dawson.

Whispering? They were yelling. 

“Not to her.” Madam Reese. Closer. Her eyes opened. She’d closed them? Hadn’t realized.

Reese was there. Next to Riddle. On her left. Holding a potion. “Here, Miss Borealis, drink this.”

Natalie stared.

Drink it?

What? 

Then the goblet. Gently tipped back. Her lips parted. Potion was warm. Tasted like nothing. It tingled. 

Then, darkness. 

* * *

Tom Riddle stared at Natalie Borealis as she drifted off to sleep this time. The last time hadn’t been sleep. She’d been unconscious. It was only a few hours after the Quidditch game ended. Slytherin had won, Natalie caught the Snitch at the exact moment both the Bludger Miles Fletcher had sent at her hit the side of her head and Andrew Osborne swung at it. Except he hadn’t hit the Bludger, he’d hit the victorious Slytherin Seeker, who had already blacked out from the hit by the Bludger. She’d then fallen, but multiple charms cast from around the stands had slowed her descent. She landed on the pitch and was immediately swarmed by the team and professors. She had been in the hospital wing, unconscious, ever since. Madam Reese attempting every spell in the book to get her to wake up. Her brain had stubbornly refused until now. The potion given to her would allow her to actually sleep — what Reese insisted her brain needed, as the healing spells did their work. 

Andrew Osborne claimed he had only been trying to drive her off course, not crack her skull open. Not a single member of Slytherin house believed him. Though they knew he was going to get away with it. The faculty weren’t going to see any malintent in the hit, especially with how brutal the game had been. They were all sporting dark bruises, busted lips, and even a broken bone or two. 

But it was evident the head injury was significant. Just the look Natalie gave Tom when she woke — of complete blankness, was enough. On top of that, the vibrant energy she usually emitted was gone. Completely vanished. Even when holding her hand, which he had been doing the entire time (and she had not even noticed when she woke) failed to produce the normal energy flow he was so accustomed to. Her hand was cold and limp in his. It was morbidly horrifying. Madam Reese’s diagnosis wasn’t encouraging either. Head injuries were tricky, she announced, you didn’t know how they were going to manifest themselves. 

This had given Tom the idea to attempt to use Legilimency to see what was going on in her head as she was unconscious. But he could not pick up on anything. He tried this multiple times, even as she was awake and looking at him. Her mind was just dark and muddy. That was when he realized that he could not pick up on anything because there was literally nothing going on inside her mind. And that realization was the most terrifying of them all.

“They’re gonna pay,” Adolphus growled this for what had to be the twentieth time. He had been uttering these three words since Natalie had arrived in the hospital, the team following right on the heels of the professors who had stretchered her in. His plans to ask Savanna Rowle to Hogsmeade had been derailed due to obvious circumstances. In fact, it felt like everything and everyone had been completely derailed.

“Yeah, they are,” and Eric Dawson kept saying those three words in response to his teammate. The two were beside themselves with anger; Neil Lament was no different, he was just quieter about it. Rosier and Nott were also more subdued, they and Greengrass were in shock at how quickly everything happened. They’d gone from winning a Quidditch game to having their captain neurologically impaired within seconds. The Beaters, Lament and Rosier, were partly blaming themselves over the incident, thinking they should have seen it coming from the Gryffindor Beaters. (In Tom’s opinion, they all should have seen it coming. But he supposed there was nothing they could do about their lack of foresight now.)

Yet Tom was now beginning to view this as a perfect opportunity to enact what had been stewing around in his mind for some time. He had plans that needed a catalyst. This looked to be it. At the very least, he could make Gryffindor regret their idiotic behavior. At the most. . . well, he’d have to see how things turned out.


	43. Year VII: The Knights

The Room of Requirement had morphed itself to fit the asker’s need once again. Now, it contained a long wooden table underneath its high vaulted ceiling. A fireplace crackled with green flames on one end of the room. Casting poisonous shadows over the occupants of the Room, and emphasizing the fact that every soul present was a true member of Slytherin house. 

Adolphus Lestrange and Eric Dawson sat on one end of the table, on the right of the empty head chair. They were engaged in a murmured conversation; between the darkness in their eyes and the merciless tone of voice, no one dared interrupt them. 

Evan Rosier was beside Dawson, third on the right from the head of the table. He remained silent. Occasionally, chipping in a word to Lestrange and Dawson (he was the only one from whom this was acceptable), or sharing a look down the table to where his girlfriend, Quinn Bulstrode, sat. 

Two seats to the immediate left of the head of the table were vacant. Beside these were Neil Lament and Cato Greengrass. Lament was silently spinning his wand before him, concentrating intently upon its revolutions. Greengrass was drumming his fingers upon the table and studying the rotations of Lament’s wand as if it were some divining rod.

Lloyd Avery was across from Greengrass and beside Rosier. A piece of parchment and inkpot were before him as his eagle-feathered quill perused the parchment with diligence. Zacharias Nott sat on his other side, assisting him with this task.

Quinn Bulstrode and Pamela Selwyn sat farther down the table, both trying to catch the eye of their respective boyfriends to remind them that they understood they were only there out of respectful consideration and would keep their vow to remain silent about anything that occurred. 

Savanna Rowle was with them as well, present due to the direct request of Adolphus Lestrange. The two older girls had taken the younger under their wing and took it upon themselves to introduce her to this exclusive group of Slytherins that everyone wanted to be a part of. 

The Black twins, Cassiopeia and Callidora, sat opposite these girls, talking between themselves and glancing around the table every so often. Cassiopeia would occasionally meet the eyes of Neil Lament and blush crimson, then have to endure the taunting of her sister.

All talking paused when the door opened and two heads of blond hair entered. Abraxas Malfoy slipped in with Melania Crouch on his arm.

“Long time, no see,” Abraxas greeted the group, trying to muster some lightheartedness into the solemn atmosphere. He had just seen them all a few days ago, after the Quidditch game he had come to watch. 

Lestrange, Dawson, and Rosier rose to shake hands with their former teammate. The couple then moved to occupy the seats left vacant for them on the left of the head chair.

“Where’s my cousin?” Abraxas asked, looking around at all present and failing to find anyone with the same shade of blond hair he possessed. He’d briefly stopped by the hospital wing the night of the game before leaving to give a report to his and Natalie’s grandmother about the situation. 

“Coming with Tom,” Lestrange replied, “they should be here soon.”

“How is she?” Abraxas had yet to see her awake and conscious.

“Bad,” Dawson answered with a wince. “Her head is all messed up.”

Abraxas muttered a string of curse words under his breath, compelling Melania to reach under the table to take his hand in hers and squeeze it in the type of compassionate support which only she was capable of. He loved her for that.

The door opened, silence fell again and this time it was Tom Riddle who stepped into the room. Natalie Borealis was beside him. Her face was frighteningly pale and her eyes were glazed, she looked about the room as if not seeing anything or anyone there. Tom had his arm securely wrapped around her and had to lead her to the head of the table. All present watched, captivated by this scene but sombered by the sepulchral aura that had overtaken the room the moment the pair stepped into it. As if a spinning whirlpool was sucking all the energy out of themselves, the air around them, even the green flames in the fireplace shrank to doleful embers. 

Abraxas retrieved his wand and conjured a plush-cushioned seat immediately to the right of the seat at the head of the table. Tom led Natalie to this, ensuring she was comfortably settled before claiming the head chair. As he did so, Natalie tucked her legs under her, curling up as best she could, with her head positioned on the armrest of this chair. She let out a soft, feline purr of satisfaction. As if acting on instinct, Tom rested his right hand on her head, gently running his fingers through the locks of her loose blonde hair. She didn’t seem to notice, though Tom knew she was incredibly partial to it.

Dull gray eyes lugubriously studied those sitting around the table. All were silent as Natalie took several minutes just to comprehend who was in the Room with her. When she had completed this arduous task, she tilted her head so she could look at Tom. The two made eye contact, and a message must have been exchanged, for Tom then glanced sharply around the table.

“Selwyn, Bulstrode, Rowle, and both Blacks — if you could leave us,” he announced it in a polite manner, yet all knew it was not to be challenged. The girls stood, hastily departing, though many sent a glance back at their respective boyfriend or crush — all of whom merely nodded in encouragement. Once they had left, those who remained were the Quidditch team; Lestrange, Dawson, Rosier, Lament, Nott, and Greengrass; Avery, their loyal tag-along and selected secretary; and Abraxas Malfoy and his girlfriend, Melania (whom everyone save herself knew was to become his fiancée upon her graduation). It was the core of whom Natalie trusted, and all who — Tom knew — she was comfortable with seeing her in such a weakened capacity.

Tom glanced over at Natalie to ensure she was satisfied with who remained in the room. Her eyes passed over those present once again, squinting as she attempted to focus. He continued playing with her hair in an almost careless manner. Finally, her eyes closed and she let out another quiet purr, looking as content as a cat being caressed by its master. 

“Right,” Tom tore his eyes from the girl at his side and allowed his gaze to slowly glance about the room before he came to Adolphus Lestrange, on his immediate right. “We’re all here thanks to Adolphus, who suggested we call this little. . . meeting.” It had actually been Tom’s idea, but he had conversed with Lestrange in a manner which ensured that Lestrange came to the conclusion that Tom wanted him to come to and thus Adolphus believed it was, in fact, his idea. 

Tom raised an eyebrow at Adolphus, who took it as his cue to begin speaking. While he did, Tom returned to looking at Natalie. Her head remained on the cushioned armrest of her chair, right beside him. Her eyes were only slightly open, though it was clear she was fighting sleep. Madam Reese would have his head if she found out he had snatched Natalie from the hospital wing and trooped her up to the seventh floor at midnight. She had not been officially released from the hospital wing yet and was forbidden from partaking in classes or Quidditch until Madam Reese allowed it. This brought no protests from Natalie. It was as if she’d been reduced to a primitive form of living; all she wanted to do was eat and sleep. Tom had to wake her up and then nearly had to carry her to the Room of Requirement in spite of all her weak protests. But he knew if she’d had her right mind, she’d want to be present for this.

Tom kept his hand on her head; he’d kept his hand on her whenever possible. He wanted to know the exact minute her energy returned. So far, it hadn’t. He theorized that right now, all her energy was concentrated on healing her brain and restoring her to full health, so there was none to be experienced by others. Or at least, he hoped this was the case. 

“-Avery’s been keeping track of all the incidents that have occurred and who was involved in them,” Adolphus was explaining to the group, “we’ve gotten them back for pretty much all of them, save the Quidditch match. But this. . . this is different.” All looked down the table to where Natalie was curled up in a motionless ball, only the slight rise and fall of her shoulders informing them that their captain was still in the land of the living.

“This was obviously targeted and deliberate, no matter how fast it all happened,” Lestrange continued, “not that the others haven’t been, but it’s time we get more formal and organized about this.”

“It’s clearly war,” Dawson tossed this out, his green eyes were alive with enthusiasm for whatever this organization of Slytherins was to develop into. “It’s time we act like it. If you get hit, you hit em back.”

“Obviously, we’ll have to keep this quiet,” Lestrange cleared his throat, meeting the eyes of everyone present. “But Talon and his crew are organizing pre-planned attacks that involve Gryffindors and Ravenclaws. I’m tired, I’m sure we’re all tired, of shit happening to the Captain.” He inclined his head towards Natalie and several of those gathered vigorously nodded their agreement. “It’s only a matter of time before the rest of us get dragged into it. We may as well do that before Gryffindor thinks its fun to curse Quinn, or Pamela, or any of us behind our backs in the halls. So, all in favor of organizing ourselves — more formally of course — in an effort to both make sure this stops,” he again gestured towards Natalie, “and to make sure the Gryffindors know their place?”

There was a chorus of ayes and hearty agreement from around the table. Tom smirked to himself. They were already an organized group, they just needed a leader. Their leader was currently indisposed. Tom was the one who had his hands (literally and metaphorically) on Natalie. The group rallied to her. They were here for her. He had confessed his feelings towards her to Lestrange and Dawson. So by that logic, they all knew. It was a necessary admission of weakness to ensure his claim over their captain. So that because they rallied to her, now they would, by default, rally to him. Tom’s leadership blended with and became equivalent to hers. Hence Tom was the one at the head of the table, and he was content with letting Adolphus do most of the talking. It helped that they all wanted the same thing and would follow whoever had the best ideas. And they all knew Tom had the best ideas.

“-I’m thinking codenames, for us individually and as a group,” Dawson was elaborating to everyone, with a lot of gesturing and hand movements in his speech. He was acting like an overexcited child, which Tom supposed he could tolerate — and use to his advantage. “I, for one, have always wanted to be referred to as a knight. Old childhood dream of mine. Everyone loves knights. Maybe. . . the Black Knights of Natalie?”

“That’s stupid,” Adolphus declared, sounding superior before his voice dropped into a silly tone. “And I wanna be the Black Knight.”

“Well, it’s ridiculous to call this group anything directly relating to my cousin,” Abraxas jumped in, it was evident he felt that the two Quidditch players were getting too puerile with this now. Tom, however, did not care how childish they got with it; doing so made them want to be involved in it. He could see it in their eyes; they loved belonging to something greater than themselves. He knew one couldn’t expect sixteen and seventeen year olds to be mature. Boys will be boys. They wanted action and adventure and romance and war. They could name the group whatever they wanted — with his approval, of course. 

Abraxas continued, trying to look as wise as possible in the face of the rambunctious younger wizards. “Don’t call it something that could be traced to her.”

“Yeah, duh,” Rosier smirked at Lestrange and Dawson. “Knights still sounds fun, though. Especially if we get swords or something.”

“Just the Knights then?” Dawson questioned, looking around at them all.

A drawn-out, bored sound of complaint came from Natalie, nearly making them flinch in fright at its suddenness. They hadn’t realized she was even awake, much less, able to listen in. Tom turned in his seat so he could better observe her. He patted her hair away from her face. She moved so he could meet her eyes and glimpse into her mind. It was how they’d been communicating for the past few days. It was easier this way, rather than have her attempt to formulate actual words.

“She thinks ‘just Knights’ is boring and is offended that you all are so uncreative,” Tom informed them, trying to keep the laughter out of his voice. Having access to Natalie’s injured mind was, morbidly, one of the most genuinely amusing things he ever had the pleasure to experience. It almost made up for her otherwise vegetable-like existence. Her thoughts were bare, unrestricted, and absolutely ruthless. She’d called Dumbledore a “self-righteous prat who thinks his way is the best way to do everything and it’s just chance that his ideas work” and Dippet a “blundering old fool who by this point is in no way, shape, or form, competent enough to head the school and be in charge of a thousand magical children” in the span of seconds when he visited her in the hospital wing yesterday. 

Tom was just glad that she could  _ have  _ thoughts now. In the first forty-eight hours after the game, her mind had been a vast empty space, and Tom had received a sense of inexplicable abandonment from it. He hadn’t liked it at all. It had put him in a terrible mood which he was still getting over. 

“But she agrees that Lestrange should be the Black Knight,” he added this after he saw it surface within her mind. Adolphus whooped in delight, though was cut off when Dawson punched him. Natalie had winced at the loud noise. She then flicked her eyes shut and grew still. Her face scrunched itself up as if in deep concentration, eyebrows furrowing furiously for a moment before she painfully morphed into her clouded leopard form. This was the first time since the injury she had done so. Tom theorized it had been impossible for her to physically transform due to the brain injury — but he’d noticed she’d been acting more like her leopard form would. As if in her reversion to basic survival mode, the cat had taken over. The purring, demanding his hand stroke her hair, the addiction to meat (and, for some reason, eggs), seeking out comfortable places to sit and nap, she even blinked with the lazy languor of a feline. 

“If you’re the Black Knight, I wanna be the White Knight,” Dawson said, and then everyone, save Abraxas and Melania, was contending for what “codename” they wanted. The theme of colors seemed to keep, with Lament claiming Red Knight (everyone insisted on it because of his ginger hair), Rosier accepting Blue Knight (Lestrange crooned that “it matched his eyes” ). Green Knight was too obvious to give to Cato Greengrass, so Zacharias Nott accepted this title (“like a true Slytherin”). Therefore Yellow Knight was bestowed upon Greengrass. This was found to be uproariously funny by most everyone.

There was much debate over what to bestow upon Lloyd Avery, the designated scribe of the group, particularly as they had already gone through all the primary colors of the Hogwarts’ crest. Silver Knight was finally selected for Avery, and it was simultaneously decided that he would, from then on, use silver ink whenever transcribing something for the group, “for aesthetic purposes”.

It was decided that Melania and Abraxas also needed “codenames”, despite Abraxas’ annoyance at how juvenile he thought they were, and Melania’s relative indifference. “Knight” did not fit either of these two, so Nott brought up the connection to Wizard’s chess. It wasn’t long before “King” and “Queen” were unanimously decided upon, partly as a joke, partly to serve as a red herring, because they all knew who was sitting at the head of the table.

“Riddle, you need a codename,” Dawson finally announced once they had all decided upon their own. The others eagerly agreed. “And it has to be a good one.”

Tom Riddle, pretending that he hadn’t foreseen and even instigated this exact name-giving event, plastered a mask of contemplation on his face. They expected something bold and grand, and he wouldn’t disappoint them. He calmly stroked the clouded leopard that had climbed into his lap and promptly fallen asleep, and then he declared himself, “Lord Voldemort.”


	44. Year VII: Dangerous Games

Tom Riddle stepped into the hospital wing one night in November, two weeks after the disastrous Quidditch match — and thought the fury that burst within him was going to implode his very skull. 

Sarah Abbott, Elizabeth Putnam, and Claire Griggs were standing before the foot of Natalie’s bed, looking very smug about something. It was late at night, so Madam Reese had retired long ago. The hospital wing was essentially unguarded, its occupants exposed to the mercy of their fellow students. Tom took a minute to reflect over how idiotic this policy was before he strode down the wing faster than you could say Salazar, stepping up to stand beside Natalie’s bed as if to separate the sleeping Head Girl from the Ravenclaws. 

“Do you need something?” he asked, attempting to remain as bored and polite as possible. He would not allow them to see that their presence had thrown him into a rampageous ire. And he would not allow them to wake her.

“Just visiting,” Putnam flashed a saccharine smile, and somehow needed to bat her eyelashes to excess.

“Aren’t we allowed to visit?” Abbott gave him an exaggerated wink, “we just want to see how our friend’s getting along. It was a rather nasty hit from Gryffindor.”

“We hope the effects aren’t. . .  _ permanent _ . . . that would be  _ awful _ ,” Putnam simpered, twirling a curl of dark hair around her finger.

“I’m sure your  _ friend _ will be back to normal quite soon,” Tom ground his teeth together. He wanted nothing more than to whip his wand from his pocket and cast an assortment of dark curses on the trio standing at the foot of the bed. But this was Hogwarts, and he had a facade to maintain.

“You seem confident in that,” Abbott said this in such a way that had ominous thoughts wiggle their way into the back of his mind. Tom was not above using Legilimency to find out just what this might mean. 

His eyes met Abbott’s and drilled into them as if undertaking a medieval siege of a fortress. Except the fortress’ walls were non-existent and he walked into it as if he was its king. All he needed was a few heartbeats before he gave her a wry smile. “I am,” he announced, keeping his smirk to himself as he watched her come down with a migraine.

Abbott gave him a confused look, then pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut. “Whatever. Let’s go,” she said to her companions. The trio vanished from the hospital wing and Tom turned to the next problem. 

Taking the goblet full of a thick potion that had been laid on the table next to Natalie’s bed, he lifted it for closer inspection. A turquoise smoke exuded from the goblet, with it, a tangy fragrance. Had he not glanced into Abbott’s mind, he wouldn’t have given it a second glance. He retrieved his wand and tapped the rim of the goblet. Its contents vanished, and with it, the pernicious little potion that Abbott and her gang had slipped into it to further the damage already inflicted on Natalie’s brain. He’d have to drop a word to Slughorn to take better precautions concerning the storage of his potions. 

Tom placed the goblet back on the table just as Natalie’s eyes snapped open. Lethargic gray clouds stared at him, unseeing and unconcerned. They drifted to the goblet he still held. With another tap of his wand, it filled with harmless water. He handed it to her with the order, “drink this.” 

Tom had discovered a few days ago that direct commands could reach the depths of her fuzzy brain and were carried out automatically. And so the goblet was drained immediately. He snatched it back out of her hand before she could attempt to return it to the table and inevitably fail, and then grasped her limp hand in his.

His dark eyes met hers again and he glimpsed the caverns of her mind; it was an obscure, gray, inert place. Like a heavy mist crawling over a deep lake. From above; the lake was invisible. From below, visibility was zero. He wasn’t sure why, but he was reminded of the static that was heard whenever the idiotic children at the muggle orphanage fiddled with what they called a “radio”. And he felt like the child playing with the switches, searching for a song or a talk show in an ocean of tinny electrical clamor.

Her hand dropped from his and his back straightened when he could not find anything amidst the racket. He watched as her eyes closed and she shifted to settle back into sleep. He was hardly aware that his own eyes were narrowed and his hands were clenched so tightly that his knuckles were white. He had business to conduct.

Tom cast a quick protection spell around Natalie, in case the Ravenclaws returned in the brief span he planned to be gone for. He swept out of the hospital wing, robes billowing out behind him. The Knights were anxious for something to do and he had an idea. 

With a flick of his wand, a tiny ball of green light appeared. Another flick, and it whisked off ahead of him towards the dungeons. He followed it as quickly as possible, without losing his composure despite the rumbling earthquake that was sending tremors of rage through his entire being.

When he arrived at the Slytherin common room, he found Lestrange, Dawson, Nott, and Avery sitting on the couches near the fire. The green light floating just above them, having awoken them. It vanished once Tom stepped in. Being close to midnight, nobody else was present in the common room, a fact which he was thankful for.

“What happened?” Adolphus asked once he spotted Tom. 

“Ravenclaws,” Tom said. It was enough torture to think about what had occurred, much less speak of it. “In the hospital wing. Attempting to poison the Captain.”

“ _ What?!” _ a joint exclamation from all.

“Poison her?” Dawson repeated, his eyes wide in astonishment. “ _ Poison?” _

“Not exactly  _ poison _ ,” Tom obliged to explain, “more so tainting her potion. To prolong and worsen the injury.”

Furious muttering in response to this, then the question, “what’re we gonna do?”

Tom just smirked, and the four other Slytherins shared devious grins.

* * *

“Is it really necessary for her to have visitors all the time?” Madam Reese complained as she bustled towards the bed with another potion for Natalie Borealis. Since this morning, she’d had alternating rounds of Slytherin visitors. Reese had come in to find Zacharias Nott and Lloyd Avery playing a game of Wizard’s chess on her bedside table. (Natalie’s gray eyes had followed their every move — which Reese took to be an improvement of her condition). Then Tom Riddle had spent his lunch sitting beside her bed and holding her hand while she slept, as he was so prone to doing. (Reese found it remarkably endearing). Later that afternoon, Eric Dawson and Adolphus Lestrange dumped armfuls of Honeydukes sweets onto the foot of her bed and told Natalie all about their recent trip to Hogsmeade (which had been Saturday. It was now Monday, but Reese did not question it). Once they stood to leave, Cato Greengrass and Neil Lament arrived and completed their homework beside her bed, as Natalie had fallen asleep again.

Now, it was around dinner time and Tom Riddle, Adolphus Lestrange, and Eric Dawson surrounded Natalie’s bed. Tom holding her hand while she vacantly stared up at the ceiling with an annoyed expression, not paying attention to the happenings around her. Adolphus and Eric were joking and snickering as usual.

“Yes,” was Lestrange’s brief reply to Reese’s exasperation.

“We miss the Captain,” Dawson’s voice held so much emotion in it (Reese didn’t care if it was affected or not) that the Hogwarts matron felt something prickle behind her eyes.

“Oh. . . alright,” she grumbled, pretending to adjust her healer’s bonnet to dab at her eyes. “So long as you get her to drink this.” 

The goblet of steaming potion floated over towards the bed. Releasing Natalie’s hand, Tom Riddle took it from the air. Unseen to Madam Reese, he murmured a spell over it, one hand on the wand resting casually in his lap. When it met his approval, he then placed it in Natalie’s hand and ordered her to drink it. Natalie did so, but then let the goblet drop to the floor beside the bed with a clang.

“That tastes like shit.”

Wide-eyed, hopeful stares were the response. These were the most words she’d spoken aloud in about two weeks. Natalie gazed back at them all with blank gray eyes, as if attempting to puzzle out their astonishment. Madam Reese, however, had a smile on her face. She’d been feeding the girl enough magical potions to make a dragon’s brain heal itself. It was about bloody time the effects were seen. 

“How do you feel, dear?” Reese ventured the question.

“Eh,” Natalie grumbled, looking upset that she had to continue speaking. “Bloody weird. . . but. . . better than before.”

“Do you remember any of the past two weeks?” Lestrange had picked up the goblet she had tossed and studied its insides as if it had a furtive secret to divulge.

“Two weeks?” Natalie repeated this as if trying to comprehend its meaning. “Bloody hell. I’m tired.”

“Sleep then, dearie,” Reese encouraged her, throwing a look at the boys to warn them from making any noise. It wasn’t long before Natalie drifted off into a deep repose. 

Madam Reese sighed, “about time.”

Three pairs of eyes attached themselves to her, begging an explanation. She felt obliged to do so.

“If my calculations are correct — and they usually are — she’ll be able to return to classes tomorrow or the day after.”

“Back to normal?” Dawson asked despite none of them really knowing what “normal” was.

“She’ll be functionable. Might experience some minor symptoms that will take longer to get over, but as close to normal as magic can bring her. The rest is time, and her. But  _ no  _ Quidditch for at least another week. Not until she’s symptom-free.”

The three Slytherins shared a delighted look between themselves, but never had the chance to respond to Reese. The hospital wing doors had banged open and in limped a very dirty, very battered, very frightened duo. They were nearly indistinguishable, with their torn robes and wild hair, they appeared more as spectres from a war-zone.

“Madam Reese!” the voice of one of these spectres identified himself as Alexander Fawley, Gryffindor team Keeper and little brother of team captain, Thaddeus Fawley. He was supporting the other figure. “Madam Reese! Help!”

“Merlin’s beard!” Reese exclaimed, hurrying down the wing. Tom Riddle followed, spurred on by his responsibility as Head Boy. “What happened?”

“I-I don’t know,” Fawley was clutching his chest with the arm that was not supporting the other figure. “I just woke up in the Forbidden Forest. . . I think — I think my rib’s broken. . . and Putnam here — I found her while I was trying to get back to the castle — she’s in worse shape. . . .”

Reese ushered them over to the nearest beds, having them both lie down to examine them. A quick few spells removed the dirt, mud, grass, leaves, twigs, and blood that covered the two. Once gone, indeed, they both looked worse for wear. Between Alexander Fawley and Elizabeth Putnam had to be several broken bones, moderate blood loss, expansive bruising, and most ominously, immense psychological scarring.

“Mr. Riddle,” Reese turned to the vigilant Head Boy, “fetch Thaddeus Fawley. Inform him his brother is in the hospital wing. And then fetch whomever you can for Miss Putnam. . . .”

Tom had to hide a smirk. Reese’s trailing meant she, like most of the Hogwarts’ population, had no idea if Putnam was currently romantically involved with someone. The Ravenclaw always seemed to be in a serious, committed relationship with the cream of their grade; yet the name still changed every month or so. “Of course, Madam Reese.”

He sailed out of the wing and through the corridors of Hogwarts. He arrived at Gryffindor Tower first, putting on a grim mask and approaching the portrait of the Fat Lady.

“You’re a Slytherin,” the Fat Lady muttered, evidently having decided on an early bedtime tonight, she had barely bothered to open her eyes.

“I’m also Head Boy,” Tom said smoothly, “and I’ve been sent here to retrieve Thaddeus Fawley. His brother is in the hospital wing.”

“Fawley?” the Fat Lady snapped awake. “Oh, it’s you, Riddle. How’s that girlfriend of yours? I always like it when she passes by. Gives the air a nice. . . feel to it.”

“Also in the hospital wing,” he said, trying to sound as urgent as possible. “If you could fetch Thaddeus. . . .”

“Lot of people in the hospital wing, it seems,” she sounded suspicious but rose and turned in her frame. She vanished for a moment and then her portrait swung open. In the tunnel stood a confused Thaddeus Fawley.

“Riddle?” he narrowed his eyes as he stepped into the corridor. “What’re you doing here?”

“Madam Reese requested I fetch you. Your brother just stumbled into the hospital wing.”

“What?” Fawley’s face lost all its color. “Is he alright? What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Tom said this as calmly and respectfully as possible. “I’d suggest you go right away. Unfortunately, I can’t accompany you. I’m on my way to Ravenclaw Tower.”

“Wait, is someone else hurt, too?”

“Yes, his girlfriend,” the Fat Lady interjected, “that cute blonde. Natalie. Poor thing. I wish she’d been a Gryffindor.”

Tom ignored her. “Elizabeth Putnam was with him. You wouldn’t happen to know who she’s currently in a relationship with, would you?”

“Yeah, I would,” Fawley sounded solemn. “Benson.”

Riddle raised an eyebrow. “Haynes?”

“Yeah,” Fawley repeated blankly, turning around to re-enter the Gryffindor common room. “I’ll go get him.”

“She always had an odd taste in men,” the Fat Lady commented as Tom waited outside. “Likes the ones everyone’s talking about. The popular ones. All everyone talks about in my ruddy house is Oberon and Benson. It’s because of the scandals they’ve caused. We love a juicy scandal. You know, that Putnam girl would probably like you if you weren’t already taken.”

Tom kept his smirk to himself. Instead, he chuckled softly, giving the Fat Lady a charming smile. It delighted her. 

“I do wish you’d been in my house too,” she continued, batting her eyelashes rather coyly. “Imagine if I had both of you? That girlfriend of yours is such a pleasure. Do tell her to stop by once she’s better. She could brighten up the Bloody Baron on a particularly bad day.”

“I will,” he promised her as if he had any intention of ever regaling this conversation to “his girlfriend.” 

“Oh, good, good!” she squealed and finally, to Tom’s immense relief, the portrait swung open again and Thaddeus Fawley reappeared, this time with Benson Haynes.

“What happened?” Haynes cautiously looked at Riddle, as if expecting him to pull out his wand and curse him.

Tom remained all business, keeping his posture and voice professional. “Madam Reese sent me to inform you that both Alexander Fawley and Elizabeth Putnam are in the hospital wing. It appears they both have been involved in some sort of accident.”

“Accident?” Haynes harshly repeated this as Tom led them away from Gryffindor Tower and to the hospital wing. “What does that mean?”

“It means Fawley and Putnam are in the hospital wing.”

“Obviously. But what happened?”

“I don’t know.”

Benson grew accusatory. “What did you do?” 

“I haven’t done anything besides retrieve you and Thaddeus,” Tom’s voice was calm, but had an underlying intonation of a threat residing within it. Daring them to accuse him, Head Boy and prefect, the professors’ favorite and Headmaster Dippet’s model student, who had won an award for services to the school and was the reason why justice was served to Myrtle Warren’s family, of possibly injuring his fellow students. That was preposterous — and the manner in which Tom was conducting himself made both Fawley and Haynes feel utterly foolish for attempting to pin the blame on Tom Riddle, Head Boy and prefect, teacher’s favorite and Headmaster Dippet’s model student, who had won an award for services to the school and was the reason why justice was served to Myrtle Warren’s family.

It wasn’t long before they arrived at the hospital wing. Tom opened the door and allowed Fawley and Haynes to step into the wing first. They sprinted over to the two beds where Madam Reese was caring for her newest patients.

“What happened?” the Gryffindors demanded. Tom Riddle, meanwhile, met the eyes of Eric Dawson and Adolphus Lestrange, who were sitting in the chairs around Natalie’s bed and watching the scene with curiosity.

“Seems like a bit of fun gone wrong,” Reese informed them. “Some experimental magic turned harmful. I had to give them both Calming Droughts and they’ve fallen asleep. They can’t seem to remember anything besides waking up in the Forbidden Forest, injured, dirty, and covered in blood. When was the last time either of you spoke to them?”

“I spoke to my brother this morning,” Fawley stared at the deep cuts that were currently mending themselves on his brother’s face while he slept. “Haven’t seen him since.”

“Same with Liz,” Haynes was awkwardly studying the bandages wrapped around his girlfriend’s arms. Now was obviously not a good time to break up with her, as he had been planning to do for the past few days. Ever since she’d started raving about Tom Riddle’s dark eyes and perfect hair. 

“Well, from what I could understand, they both are very confused and very injured,” Reese said with a frown. “Any idea how that could have happened?”

Haynes and Fawley shared a look between themselves. Then they glanced down the hospital wing to where three Slytherins were sitting around the bed of a fourth Slytherin. They both knew it would be useless to voice that quiet little fear in the back of their minds.

“No,” Fawley grunted, turning away from the tranquil scene which the four Slytherins made. “No idea. They were probably goofing around together or something. My brother can be pretty, er, moronic.”

Madam Reese huffed, not looking very convinced by this but having nothing else to investigate. “Well, best keep a close eye on them from now on.”


	45. Year VII: Fallout

Madam Reese forced Natalie to take one more potion before allowing her to leave the hospital wing the next day. Under the severe restriction she avoid broomsticks until she felt entirely symptom free, and that she return immediately should she “feel it prudent”.

Reese then finally dismissed her to rejoin everyday life at Hogwarts and she went about tending to Putnam, Fawley, and Sarah Abbott. The latter had just come into the wing earlier that morning, sporting several nasty cuts on her cheeks and complaining of a horrible migraine that made her head feel like pudding left out in warm weather. 

Similar to Putnam and Fawley, Abbott also had no real explanation for her injuries. Reese assumed (as she and Putnam were friends) the random injuries and vague reasons for them were the result of seventh-year magical pranks by some bright Ravenclaws. How Gryffindor fifth year Alexander Fawley had gotten mixed up in it all was beyond her, but she reckoned it had something to do with the Putnam-Haynes-Fawley connection.

As Reese unwound the bandages on Alexander’s arm to see if the bones had properly set and the cuts healed, she couldn’t help but find her thoughts turning back to Natalie Borealis. The girl was a mystery wrapped in a nightmare then cloaked in an inexplicable natural phenomenon. 

She couldn’t understand why it had taken the healing potions so long to exhibit an evident effect on the girl. Or why there had been such a dreadful feeling in the air around her bed. Indeed, now that she had been dismissed, the entire wing seemed much more stable and secure. With Natalie present, Reese felt on edge — as if the windows were going to be blown out at any given moment. And the constant stream of visitors the girl had. She had to admit, their dedication and loyalty to her was admirable. But in the past few days it had seemed to be more than just visitations by sympathetic friends. It had felt like guards standing watch.

“Madam Reese!” a voice jolted her from the typhoon of thoughts which had a pale blonde girl at the center. She quickly flicked her wand and fresh bandages wrapped around Fawley’s arm. She turned to spot a very anxious Tom Riddle.

“Ah yes, Mr. Riddle, I assume you’re looking for Miss Borealis?”

He nodded.

“I’ve just dismissed her,” Reese gave him a smile. “Not ten minutes ago. She’s probably on her way down to lunch now.”

To Reese’s disconcertment, Tom Riddle did not seem to be very happy about this. He looked rather worried. Nevertheless, he thanked her politely, flashed her the smile which she was really quite fond of, and vanished out of the wing.

Had anyone asked Tom Riddle why he was so worried upon hearing that Natalie Borealis had been dismissed and was who-knows-where within the castle, he wouldn’t quite be able to formulate his thoughts into a reasonable sentence. Because he wasn’t exactly sure  _ why  _ he was so bothered by not knowing where the blonde Slytherin with a vicious temper was. If he had to guess the cause of his current emotional state, he’d probably say it was because he liked to know things. And not knowing things, especially vitally important pieces of information regarding the one person whom he felt viscerally attached to, made him very upset indeed. Tom Riddle didn’t like feeling upset, or other such related feelings, including “worry”, “concern”, and “probably irrational anxiety over the wellbeing of another”, so he did the logical thing. He got angry. 

The Head Boy stormed down the halls of Hogwarts, destination being the Great Hall. He hazarded a guess that the Captain was hungry. Since the injury, it was always a safe bet. Black robes billowing out behind him, he barely noticed who he passed, intent on his location. All he crossed paths with were quick to flatten themselves to the walls, not willing to risk the wrath of the tall Slytherin thundering down like Ares from Mount Olympus.

All it took was a quick scan of the Great Hall to determine his sought after target was not present. But he had to be sure. And he had to acquire further information. 

Tom crossed the hall to the Slytherin table, where Lestrange, Dawson, Nott, and Rosier were sitting with their heads huddled together as if discussing clandestine plans.

“Have you seen the Captain?” Tom threw the question at them. With the advent of their new nicknames and titles, Natalie was quickly becoming the Captain to everyone, including Tom. 

The recently proclaimed Lord Voldemort, however, did not like the looks on their faces when the four turned to him.

“You haven’t seen her?” Lestrange asked in disbelief.

Dawson coughed, trying to clear the tension that had erupted. “She was just here. Said she was hungry. Started eating but then said she had to leave. Said it was too loud or something.”

“We don’t know where she went,” Rosier added, seeing the next question rising in Tom’s very posture. “But I’m sure she’s fine.”

“Yeah,” Lestrange dropped his voice, “the enemies are bloody scared to do anything right now, with Putnam, little Fawley, and now Abbott.” At the mention of these names, smirks were exchanged between the group. 

A sour look passed over Tom’s face, irritated they couldn’t give him better intelligence concerning the location of Natalie Borealis. It vanished as soon as it appeared, and he nodded to them before departing from the hall.

Tom Riddle didn’t find Natalie Borealis until the next morning. It was Wednesday, the only class of the day being double Potions from right after breakfast to just before lunch. He hadn’t seen her in the common room when he woke, or at breakfast. Unsure whether he had merely missed her timewise, or if she was avoiding him, or if she had simply skipped breakfast, risen late, and gone right to class. He hadn’t even seen her dormmates. He knew he bloody well was entitled to knowing her whereabouts and the fact he did not was offensive to him. How anyone could hide from him in Hogwarts was a laudable feat indeed, though if anyone were to successfully accomplish it, it would most certainly be Natalie Borealis. All this did, however, was annoy him.

He finally laid eyes on her waves of white blonde hair at the front of Slughorn’s class. She had been the first to arrive, per usual. Beating even him.

Tom stalked across the classroom to take his usual place beside her. A spare bit of parchment was on the table and she bent over this with astute diligence. He first thought she was taking notes or catching up on the assignments she had missed. Further examination revealed she was merely drawing random, eclectic shapes and signs on the parchment. For some unfathomable reason, this infuriated him. 

He cleared his throat to get her attention. “When were you released from the hospital wing?” 

The reply was slow in coming. “Yesterday.”

“Why have I not seen you since then?”

“Dunno.”

“Where have you been?”

“Hogwarts.”

“Where in Hogwarts?”

“In the castle.”

“Where in the castle?”

“Around.”

“Around where?”

The quill she clutched was tossed onto the table. She lifted her head and turned to stare at him. He noticed her gray eyes were squinted, as if she was internally flinching. Tom took the opportunity to reach into her mind, but her eyes snapped shut before he could do so, and this unexpected motion buffeted him away. His anger sharpened. There was something she didn’t want him to see. 

“Stop talking so loud.”

“I’m not.” He barely spoke above a whisper. 

“Whatever,” she brushed him off, picking up her quill and returning to mindless tracing. The shapes growing on the parchment made absolutely no sense to Tom. It was just a collection of interconnected squares and rectangles and triangles, though Tom found it to be the most enraging pattern of ink he had ever laid eyes on. 

They were silent as the rest of the class trickled in. Professor Slughorn himself being a few minutes late. 

“My apologies class!” he explained his tardiness. “I’m just getting out of a meeting with Madam Reese. Let’s start today’s lesson. You’ll find the recipe on page seventy nine of your books. Oh, and welcome back, Natalie, m’dear. I daresay class has been a bore without you.”

Natalie gave Slughorn a halfhearted smile, then began flipping through her book to the assigned page. Tom studied the Potions professor for a moment longer, glimpsing the shade of disappointment that darkened his usual jolly mood in this class. Tom knew what he sensed. Or rather, did not sense. And with this, the entire aura of the classroom sank into doldrums. The perky chatter turned glum and faces grew irritable. Tom would have knelt to melancholy had he not been so irate.

To prove his theory, if only to himself, Tom silently reached over to tap the back of her palm. That was all he needed. Her energy was still nonexistent. He found himself so inundated with bitterness his mouth grew dry and his jaw clenched itself shut.

“What?” her voice pierced through the machinations of his mind. 

He had to unlock his jaw to respond. “Uh, yeah, this is how we’ll split this up,” he began divvying up the tasks needed to complete the potion. As he continued, he noticed her eyes were glazing and she looked increasingly overwhelmed. He tapped the back of her hand again to force her to focus, and in doing so, her eyes locked onto his. He briefly met a glance of what was happening in her mind at the moment, and he marveled at how she was even able to tolerate sitting there. 

The blistering heat of the fire below the cauldron, the bright torches within the classroom, the incessant shuffling of the other students, the grating tutting of Slughorn, the claustrophobia of the dungeon ceiling and walls, the heavy steam beginning to rise from the cauldrons, the thick, noxious fumes this created within the cramped room, the clashing scents of all the ingredients, the blinding tongues of fire beneath the cauldron, the murmurs of individual voices within the room, echoing off the walls and intensifying themselves into a cacophony of a dozen different conversations, yet he somehow still heard and followed every one of them, and a constant buzz which he  _ felt _ more than heard — the sensory overload was nearly intolerable. When he returned to his own senses, he found his head pounding, along with being gripped by an overwhelming desire to run away. 

What Tom did not expect, however, was for her to grab his hand as if it was the last shred of her sanity. Her skin cold and lifeless without its usual glowing energy, clutching a corpse would be more pleasant. He had to restrain a shudder. She pulled him close so she could whisper in his ear.

“Can we just make this bloody potion and be done so we can leave?”

He merely nodded his assent and they tackled the task of concocting that day’s potion. 

They finished in about an hour. They gestured Slughorn over to test the potion; he declared it perfect. Then took one look at Natalie and dismissed the two of them. Natalie darted out of the classroom so fast she came close to smashing right into the doorframe. Tom remained hot in pursuit as she raced through the halls of the school, her intended destination unknown to him. 

It ended up being the Great Hall. Lunch was just being served, and most students were still in class. It was therefore nearly empty, just how Natalie liked it.

She took her usual place at the Slytherin table and stared about at the platters of food.

“I want eggs.” 

Her wish the house elves’ command, several plates of all styles of eggs soon turned up. She appeared content with this and began generously serving herself.

Tom Riddle studied her with morbid fascination from the seat on her left. She was so. . . airheaded at the moment it amazed him. 

He choked up the audacity to ask her a question. “How are you feeling?” 

She shrugged, intent on her food. That was as much of an answer as he was going to get. He decided to shelf everything stirring within his brain and begging to be addressed. Such as the fact they both knew they fancied each other. There were bigger issues at hand. 

It wasn’t long before Eric Dawson popped out of nowhere and joined them.

“You’re not gonna believe what just happened.”

“What?” Natalie sounded as if she could not care any less about whatever he was about to say.

“Adolphus asked Savanna Rowle to go to Hogsmeade with him this Saturday,” Eric said this with palpable fervor. Tom Riddle could not, for the life of him, understand why Dawson was giving him such a pointed look.

Natalie did not seem very enthused about this breakthrough in her teammate’s love life. Then again, she didn’t seem very enthused about anything really. “Oh. That’s good.”

“Yeah, you know,” Eric continued staring at Tom Riddle with very raised and very wiggly eyebrows, “it’d be fun if, you know, they went on a double date with another couple too. . . .”

“Yeah,” Natalie was too interested in eating to give much thought to whatever Dawson was going on about. Therefore Eric directed his full attention to Tom Riddle, hoping he’d pick up on what he was insinuating despite the sinking of his voice as his gusto evaporated. 

“It’d really be a lot of fun, especially if they were friends with that other couple too. . . .” Dawson’s eyes were wide open and at this point, trying to bore right into Tom Riddle’s soul. Tom stared back, bewildered as to why Dawson was acting this strange.

“Can you stop talking so loud?” Natalie ended the thread of this conversation. Her face scrunched up from the noise in such an adorably painful way that Eric Dawson very nearly found his old crush on her rekindled. And that was more terrifying than the cold mask Tom Riddle had on his face.

“Uh. . . sorry, Cap. Didn’t, er, mean it. Anyway, I, um, gotta go,” it took a Herculean effort for him to mutter this and dart out of the hall. 

“Why’s everyone being so bloody weird?” Natalie grunted through a mouthful of pumpkin juice. “Or is it just me?”

Tom knew which route was prudent. “Everyone’s bloody weird.” 

Not long after, Natalie stood to depart. Tom rose alongside her and became incensed by the expression on her face at having done so.

“What’re you doing?” her voice was rough and her teeth dug into her lower lip.

“Leaving — aren’t you?”

She seemed irritated by this, and Tom felt no different. “Yes, but why are you leaving  _ with _ me?”

“We arrived together.”

“So?”

“Aren’t you going to the library?”

“No.”

“Where, then? You aren’t allowed to play Quidditch until Madam Reese-”

“Shut up,” she narrowed her eyes as if he had muttered a very offensive insult. “Stop talking so bloody loud.”

“I’m not.”

“No, I’m not going back to the hospital wing.”

Tom stared at her with such a dangerous expression, it made Natalie nervous. They were silent for a few moments, until she realized she had responded to something which had not been spoken aloud.

“Did you think that?”

“Yes. . . .”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t feel you break into my mind.”

“I didn’t. I swear.”

“Then how did you know I was thinking that?”

“I. . . I dunno.”

“You can’t just perform Legilimency without knowing-”

“Be quiet!” Tom was close enough to see the mist accumulating over her gray eyes. He fell silent immediately. Something about the possibility of seeing her cry — and being the reason for it — morphed his anger to nausea. “Please, just. . . stop talking so loud.”

He didn’t respond. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d heard her say the word “please”. He didn’t like it. The word wasn’t worthy enough to be uttered from her lips. So he stood there in the Great Hall before the pale blonde witch, watching and waiting. He wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to be waiting for, he just knew it was something. 

There was now a steady stream of students flowing in, all chattering and ravenous for lunch. Natalie’s gaze swept towards the incoming masses, and Tom studied the explosion of stress and apprehension within her gray eyes because of it — cumulonimbus clouds towering into fearsome anvil heads. Tom found it had grown rather hard to breathe; with oxygen being sucked away from his lungs and pulled towards these storm clouds. 

It was apparent it was not only Tom experiencing this phenomenon. The jabbering of students in the hall and the air itself dropped off to an ominous still. Confused looks were sent around the hall, as all searched for whatever  _ change _ they had sensed which made the hairs on the back of their necks stand up and engendered a primitive need to seek out shelter. It went beyond the bewitched ceiling turning dark with angry purple clouds.

Natalie seemed to understand bewildered eyes were, one by one, being drawn to her — standing with hunched shoulders by the Slytherin table. Tom observed her with bated breath, partly due to how difficult it was to inhale and then maintain a hold on the oxygen. 

Tom had to convince every fiber in his body to step forward, snatch her hand, and drag her out of the hall. It wouldn’t do to have her become a spectacle in front of everyone. 

It was like lassoing a tornado and then attempting to wrangle it in the direction he wanted it to go, when all it really wanted to do was figure out why it was even a tornado in the first place. 

He managed to pull her down into the dungeons of the castle. They were empty, most Slytherins at lunch or in class.

“Where are we going?” Natalie bleated in a small voice once she recovered herself a bit.

“Away from the Great Hall,” Tom said, “so you don’t cause mass chaos.”

She grew quiet, then — “Um. . . mass chaos?”

“Whatever is happening inside your head, is also happening outside your head,” Tom scrambled for an explanation. How did you tell a storm it was a storm? It didn’t know it was a storm. It just  _ was _ . And everyone else couldn’t do anything besides warily watch it churn until it was atop them wreaking destruction. 

“What do you mean?” she whispered it. Tom had pulled her into an abandoned classroom that was only used for Dueling Club meetings on Thursday nights and nothing else. He stood before her, clutching both her hands in his and pretending they didn’t feel devoid of all warmth. 

“Almost everyone in the Great Hall. . .  _ felt _ something.”

“Felt what?”

“You.”

“What does that mean?”

“You were upset,” Tom intended to both try to make Natalie understand, and strengthen his own theory.

“Yes. . .”

“Because it was loud?”

“Yeah. You and Dawson.”

“You were overwhelmed?”

“Yeah. . .”

“Especially when everyone started coming in?”

“Yeah.”

“You have a headache?”

“Uh, like a dull ache, yeah. I’m bloody pissed though.”

Tom paused; the extent of his knowledge ended here. He wasn’t quite sure how he meant to tie all this together, but he knew it made sense, somehow.

“ _ Meow,” _ they both started at this unexpected noise. Tom hadn’t closed the door of the classroom, and a calico cat had slipped in. Sitting on its haunches, it stared as though expecting something from them. They were contemplating this strange sight when another cat curled around the door and into the room. This one black and white with bright green eyes. 

Tom would have questioned the random appearance of the felines had Natalie not tried to pull away from him. He tightened his grip on her cold hands as she glanced around the classroom for the first time. “Why are we here?”

“Convenience.”

“Right. . . well, um, I’ve got places to be, so . . .” she looked down at his hands wrapped around hers. 

He released her, but was unable to hide the disappointment that flashed through his eyes. Her energy, the vibrant life force that delighted anyone who had the blessed opportunity to come into contact with her, was still absent. He’d hoped upon her dismissal from the hospital wing, it would be reignited. This did not look to be the case. It felt like a heinous betrayal and it bothered him more than he could understand. 

Something about the look that marred his pale face must have struck Natalie. Tom glimpsed the same mist as before form a watery film over her eyes. She blinked several times, turning and nearly tripping over the cats — a third had joined them, before she stumbled out of the classroom. When she had gone, Tom remained standing there — locking eyes with the cats (they now acted bored) — paralyzed by horrible tremors which seemed suspiciously like guilt. 


	46. Year VII: Advanced Transfiguration

Transfiguration class on a particular day in mid-November was always a bore. Albus Dumbledore knew his seventh year class of Gryffindors and Slytherins would rather be anywhere else when the day’s lesson consisted solely of theoreticals and nothing practical. He too, recalled his own Hogwarts days, of dull professors droning on about what some dead wizard had written in the past ten centuries. In fact, he fondly remembered quite a few very much needed and very much enjoyed naps in his Charms class decades ago.

It looked like Rebecca MacMillan was participating in one of these very much needed and very much enjoyed naps at the moment. 

Dumbledore had, a few years ago, determined a key component of being a professor at Hogwarts was the ability to give a lecture (complete with demonstrations) while simultaneously thinking and pondering and planning a multitude of other unrelated things. He was beginning to realize all it did was ensure half his class fell asleep while listening to his quiet babbling about the more complex laws of Transfiguration. This was the most boring class he held every year, but he delighted in using it to study and reflect upon the behavior of his students. Especially this seventh year class — one of the most fascinating classes to walk the halls of the school. 

It consisted of Gryffindors: Rebecca MacMillan, the bubbly prefect who spent most of class sending notes to her boyfriend, Logan Wernfeld; Quidditch players, Thaddeus Fawley, who’d been visibly dejected since his brother was admitted to the hospital wing, and Andrew Osborne, who would be a bright student if he wasn’t so interested in smacking Bludgers around; then there was Oberon Talon, whom Dumbledore found very intriguing indeed. 

On the Slytherin side was Melania Crouch, Dumbledore adored instructing the quiet yet industrious blonde; Zacharias Nott, a very diligent pupil prone to letting himself be influenced by the stronger personalities in the group of Slytherins. This group consisted of Tom Riddle, Natalie Borealis, Eric Dawson, and Adolphus Lestrange.

Dawson and Lestrange were an amusing pair, Dumbledore did not doubt this. Spirited pranksters with loud presences, Dumbledore found they added a bit of lightheartedness to anything that came their way. Despite this, they still looked pale when seated behind the remarkable duo of Natalie Borealis and Tom Riddle. These two were all everyone seemed to be talking about — faculty, students, even ghosts. Dumbledore did not have to deduce why.

Tom Riddle had been an unusual wizard ever since he first met him as a child. He hadn’t expected the arrogant boy he came across at the muggle orphanage to charm his way to the top of the class, landing himself as Head Boy and boasting an award to services to the school. But he supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised. 

Then there was Natalie Borealis, the daughter of Theia Malfoy, who had been one of his favorite students what seemed like just yesterday. Dumbledore genuinely liked the dynamic, talented witch her daughter had proven to be. He found he couldn’t help himself; the girl had a magnetic aura, drawing others toward her without even realizing. He was convinced she would end up being one of the most noteworthy witches to have walked the halls of Hogwarts, and he knew her deceased mother would be proud. He found it only natural that Natalie and Tom, both brilliant in their own right, gravitated towards the other.

What was most intriguing, however, was the relationship between the two. He, like everyone else at Hogwarts, could never quite be sure what exactly it  _ was _ . Romantic, platonic, or perhaps even a rivalry. The first was the leading theory, despite neither of them seeming like the romantic type. But then again, Dumbledore found people could always surprise you. 

Dumbledore knew something was transpiring between the two sides of his class. More than the usual Gryffindor-Slytherin rivalry. This class pretended like the members of the other house did not exist for the one and a half hour lesson that was his advanced Transfiguration course. And he knew Tom Riddle, Natalie Borealis, and Oberon Talon, were at the center of it. 

At the moment, he was lecturing about how foolish an idea it was to attempt to transfigure a dragon into a chihuahua. Not only were you bound to fail, but you would end up with a very angry dragon on your hands. 

Melania Crouch was the only one taking notes. Beside her, Natalie Borealis slumped on her desk, quill in her hand scratching away at her parchment. A closer look revealed the parchment full of harsh lines and methodical shapes. This had been her usual behavior in class since being released from the hospital wing. Dumbledore let it slide, because her test scores had hardly suffered and she could still answer direct questions — albeit, if given a bit longer to think about the answer. Madam Reese had informed the faculty that Natalie Borealis was physically healed, but still suffered from the psychological trauma of the injury, which, she was sure, would best be dealt with by a return to normal routine.

It was Tom Riddle’s behavior towards Natalie that Dumbledore found curious. It was well known the Head Boy had always been attentive to and even possessive of Natalie Borealis. He’d sat next to her in Transfiguration since first year. Upon returning to class after the Quidditch injury, her every movement would draw his eyes to her, as if Tom was anxiously checking up or waiting for something from her. 

It so intrigued Dumbledore he planned to use Legilimency to glimpse a brief look into their minds, during this exact class. He was no stranger to doing this with students. He never actually read through their thoughts and feelings, of course, as that would prey on his conscience far too much. He merely got a taste, a brush along the surface. He had never been easily able to do this with either Tom or Natalie, and since their fifth year their minds had been completely closed to him. A conversation with Professor Merrythought confirmed his suspicion that the two were gifted Occlumens — and, by that measure, Legilimens as well. 

While maintaining his lecture at the same pace, he first brushed against Tom’s mind, only to find a cold stone wall. Not worth pursuing, he decided. Then he focused on Natalie. 

She must have sensed the intrusion because she glanced up to meet his piercing gaze. His blue eyes connected with hers, and Dumbledore found himself with a pulsing headache. Her usual Occlumency walls were down, and when their eyes met, she had even allowed him a direct look into her head. 

Distinctly horrifying was the only term for it. He did not know how loud and grating his lecturing voice was until he heard it reverberating off the insides of his skull, or how irritating the scratching of a quill was (he now realized Natalie had a silencing spell cast around her own quill), or how distracting the continuous shuffling about of students sitting in a classroom could be, or how obnoxious Peeves was, bouncing off the walls and cackling a few corridors away, or how shrill Professor Binns’s voice could be, as it floated down the halls and through the open door, or how much the magic that existed within the very air at Hogwarts accumulated to a general buzzing that couldn’t be tuned out. That and more built up to constitute the headache Natalie was experiencing — and now, through the Legilimency reach, which Dumbledore suffered from.

“Um, Professor, is everything alright?” the sweet voice of Melania Crouch interrupted the exchange of sensory input. Dumbledore realized he had stopped speaking about complex laws of Transfiguration and merely stood, spellbound, in front of them as he endured the pain encountered by attempting Legilimency on Natalie Borealis. 

“Yes,” he cleared his throat and pushed his new pair of half-moon glasses back into place. “Everything is perfectly fine, Melania. I was merely contemplating if I ought to end class early.” He found himself pitying the Slytherin Head Girl, and he understood she had not shown him this out of malice or ill-intent, but rather, to bring him to awareness of her experience. 

“And?” Adolphus Lestrange perked up from his lounging. “What’s the decision?”

“To end it early, Mr. Lestrange,” Dumbledore chuckled, “Class is dismissed. Off you go.”

There was a murmur of relief — though some classmates had to be shaken awake — and the room began to empty. Dumbledore sat back behind his desk and steepled his fingers as he was prone to doing when deep in thought. His eyes rested on the front row, where Tom Riddle nudged Natalie Borealis to inform her class had ended. 

After imparting how torturous class was to Dumbledore, her attention had dropped back to scratching meticulous patterns on parchment. Dumbledore now saw that this mechanical motion soothed the overload of sensory information she received. He understood painful sensitivity to noise and light were common symptoms of a head injury, but to hear Peeves bouncing around from several halls away — and Professor Binns, whose classroom was on the floor above — seemed a bit much. Not to mention the consistent buzzing of magical energy she seemed to be picking up on. Dumbledore himself was no stranger to the energy imbued within the castle and within its atmosphere, but to Natalie it was like having the four founders of Hogwarts whispering in your ear all the time.

He watched as Natalie slowly packed her bag and allowed Tom to escort her out. Since the injury, she was much more lethargic and he was always escorting her places. Not that he hadn’t done so before, but Dumbledore thought it seemed more formal and organized now. Especially with Adolphus, Eric, and Zacharias standing near the door, awaiting the duo. While Dumbledore admired the loyalty and mutual support within Slytherin house, and particularly between the Slytherin team, he couldn’t help but be a bit suspicious. It was no secret that a slew of Gryffindors had been ending up in the hospital wing due to dubious reasons for the past month or so. There was no evidence linking this to Slytherin but Dumbledore retained his speculations nonetheless.

He remained sitting behind his desk for the rest of the class period, lost in his own thinking. He had an odd feeling he was missing some vital piece of information, and this made him uncomfortable. He had to know what it was. 

Dumbledore elected to ignore the waiting pile of first year essays on his desk — grading was what Sunday was for — and decided it would be a nice day to have lunch with Professor Slughorn.

* * *

“Why, Albus, what a surprise! Didn’t think you’d ever visit little old me up here,” Horace Slughorn joked when Dumbledore claimed the seat beside the Potions professor at the high table in the Great Hall at lunch that day. Classes had just gotten out and the Hall was quickly filling with ravenous students. 

“Our house rivalry does not forbid us from speaking to fellow professors,” Dumbledore jested, pouring himself some pumpkin juice and pondering what he’d like to eat for lunch that day. He always found it to be a hefty decision.

Slughorn laughed, though it soon petered out to a morose sigh. “Ah, it’s raining again. I do wish the ceiling wouldn’t always imitate the actual weather. A little sun would be nice.”

“Yes, it would,” Dumbledore said, barely glancing at the ceiling of the Great Hall. It was dark and rainy, and soon looked to grow more stormy. It had been that way for weeks now. He hadn’t given it a second thought. He did however, agree with the more metaphorical side of Slughorn’s comment. The atmosphere in the castle had been downright dreary for quite some time now. It seemed to seep into everyone’s mood and conjure bouts of melancholy. Dumbledore himself had been feeling rather put out as of late.

“So, Albus, what brings you to this side of the Hall?” Slughorn asked, well aware Dumbledore hadn’t just visited for a nice little chat. The Transfiguration professor preferred to sit in front of his own house, on the other end of the high table.

Dumbledore decided not to bother mincing any words. He found himself too galled at the moment to bother beating around the bush. Perhaps it was the dark purple clouds billowing out on the ceiling above him, but he felt he had to satisfy his curiosity immediately, before the storm broke. 

“How has Natalie been faring in your class? Since she’s left the hospital wing — have you noticed any change in her performance?”

Professor Slughorn spent quite a while stirring his spoon in the stew before him. (It looked so tasty that Dumbledore had settled on it for lunch as well). He appeared somewhat pensive, and Dumbledore had the distinct feeling Slughorn was hoping he hadn’t come to talk about this particular student.

“Natalie’s bright as always,” Slughorn finally said, still staring into the stew. “A bit off from the injury, no doubt, but that’s to be expected, of course. We couldn’t ask her to come back from such an injury at one hundred percent so soon, could we?”

“Certainly not,” Dumbledore agreed, lilting his voice in such a manner as to prod Slughorn to continue speaking. To keep discussing the matter looked like it was the last thing Slughorn wished to do, so Dumbledore kept quiet, desiring to hear what else he had to say ever the more.

“She is, er, a bit. . . down,” Slughorn admitted, pausing to take a long slurp from his stew. The head of Slytherin house always knew how to enjoy food, Dumbledore would give him that. “It does make Potions rather gloomy. Do you find the same in your class?”

Dumbledore had been waiting for Slughorn to turn the conversation around. “Yes, I do, indeed. Does it affect others in the class as well?”

“Yes, the whole class wallows in misery,” Slughorn jumped at this, “I’m convinced it’s due to the fact we hold Potions in the dungeons. I understand tradition and all that but, really, class in the dungeons? It’s bound to put a damper on anyone’s day.”

Dumbledore simply hummed acknowledgement of this statement, taking a moment to savor the stew before him. It was rather delicious. A flash of light drew his gaze upwards — the growing clouds broke into a storm. Low thunder rumbled, amplifying the realism of the enchanted ceiling.

“Fabulous weather we’re having here,” Slughorn commented with ample sarcasm. “Can’t you put a word in with Dippet? Request blue skies and bright sun for a change?”

“It’s not quite that simple,” Dumbledore chuckled, though he was rather entranced by the ceiling. It never ceased to amaze him how magic could produce such lifelike effects. Thunder rumbled again — much louder than before, and he felt his ears pop, as if the pressure in the room had rapidly changed. He frowned — that was a bit  _ too _ lifelike.

Glancing around informed him he wasn’t the only one who thought this. Most of the students were looking up and about, wondering if there was something wrong with the ceiling. Dumbledore began to ponder this himself. 

“I mean, really,” Slughorn continued complaining, raising his voice to be heard over the thunder, “how is one supposed to enjoy a meal with a hurricane bearing down on us?”

Sudden movement attracted his attention. Dumbledore watched Natalie Borealis jump up from her spot in the center of a large group of Slytherins, and dash out of the hall at a near sprint. His eyes roved over the Slytherin table, and, as he anticipated, Tom Riddle stood and stalked out after her, in a manner very similar to a pet owner going to retrieve their misbehaving animal which had landed itself in a spot of trouble.

“Poor girl,” Slughorn was saying, also having witnessed her exit. “Can barely sit down for a meal. Madam Reese said that noise to her is much louder than normal. I can’t imagine what this thunder must sound like.”

“Yes,” Dumbledore found himself studying the ceiling again. The clouds now seemed to be slowly dissipating, as if the storm had passed — or merely moved out of the Great Hall. “I can’t imagine.”


	47. Year VII: The Enemies

Oberon Talon didn’t know he was staring until Thaddeus Fawley threw a roasted potato at his face. “Oi, mate, you look like a bloody creep.”

He turned his gaze from the Slytherin table across the room to the Gryffindor team Seeker. “I’m just looking.”

“Staring.”

“Whatever,” Oberon decided to drop the subject. It was no use to fight amongst themselves when the real enemies were across the hall. Surrounding a pale blonde. 

He wasn’t quite sure how the factions had emerged. It all started with that bloody Christmas party last year. And then Benson got involved. And then Oberon’s life got screwed up by Tom Riddle and his cronies. The loss of his prefect badge. Detention. His reputation. His father’s reputation. His family’s status. His father’s job. His resentment over all this had led to a loose alliance between himself, several Ravenclaws, and by now, the entire Gryffindor Quidditch team. The one thing they had in common was they hated a certain group of Slytherins.

But this could be irritating. Benson in particular was prone to doing stupid, hotheaded things. He’d demonstrated that multiple times — Oberon wasn’t fooled by his stint in the hospital wing with Sarah Abbott. Someone had meddled with them. He had a feeling it was Riddle. And he  _ knew _ the time that he, Benson, and Sarah Abbott all ended up in the hospital wing, vomiting up blood and covered in bright green pustules had something to do with Riddle and the little gang he shared with Natalie Borealis.

But speaking of hotheads — the Gryffindor Quidditch team was full of them. The injury to Natalie during the past Quidditch game was obviously premeditated. But it was premeditated by a bunch of short-sighted morons. The results of it were annoying and even dangerous. Elizabeth Putnam, Benson’s girlfriend and one of the Ravenclaws involved in this little coalition, had mysteriously ended up beaten and bloodied in the Forbidden Forest. The same thing had happened to Alexander Fawley, the team Keeper and Thaddeus’ little brother. They had to be smarter. This was Tom Riddle and a bunch of Slytherins they were dealing with. Not your average classroom bullies. 

And the injury had debilitated Natalie. Which aggravated Oberon. It put a stupid, vapid look in her eyes that was disappointing to look at. And he liked looking at her, whenever possible. At least she was back in classes and eating in the Great Hall most days. 

His eyes shifted across the Hall and he knew he was staring again. But he didn’t care. Right now she sat — in her usual spot — between Riddle and Lestrange. She picked at the last few scraps on her plate, flicking them around with her fork as if not quite sure what to do with them, before lifting them to her mouth. Then she dragged the utensil around on her plate a bit more, looking annoyingly listless. 

He couldn’t see the gray of her eyes from this distance, but he could see the blank, unfocused glaze that had consumed her entire face since that Quidditch match. He wondered when it would go away. He hoped it would be soon, because it affected him, even sitting at this distance, as if there was a heavy cloud weighing down the entire hall, heaped upon his shoulders and straining his back. He felt like Atlas. It made him angry. But he didn’t know if he was mad at her, himself, or everybody else.

“You’re staring again,” Benson warned him this time.

“Then stare with me,” he was only jesting, but knew Benson wouldn’t take it so.

Benson grew defiant, feeling his pride threatened. “Alright, I will.”

“Stop trying to attract their attention,” Thaddeus hissed, his anger masking the underlying fear. “Can we just lay low?” His brother was still in the hospital wing. It had successfully taken the bite out of Thaddeus Fawley.

“We’re just looking,” Benson said, “it’s not a crime to look at somebody. Lots of blokes look over at them.”

Oberon knew he was right in this regard. Most of the school liked looking at the group of Slytherins. You couldn’t help it. There was something irresistible about them. In Oberon’s case, his gaze focused on the blonde witch at the epicenter of the group. 

Even with her current insipidness, she was still, in his opinion (and a lot of others), the most attractive girl in the school. Ingrained athleticism lending to shapely femininity, her tailored robes did nothing to hide it. If anything, they emphasized it. Her blonde, nearly white hair, so characteristic of the Malfoy clan, was in loose waves that nearly reached her elbows today. Every so often she tucked some of it behind her ear in a mindless gesture that evinced a deep desire in Oberon to tug it loose, just to see her pout her lips in annoyance and go to retuck it. And that was certainly not the only thing he would like to do to her.

“Well, don’t look for too long,” Thaddeus grumbled, unwilling to argue further. “You could end up in the hospital wing — again.”

Benson snorted, every bit the arrogant Gryffindor lion. “I don’t plan on it.”

“Look at what happened to Putnam,” Thaddeus glared, though all it did was make Benson glare back. “Did you break up with her yet?”

“She broke up with me,” Benson relayed this with something like relief in his voice. Oberon, however, had to resist the urge to shake his head. Putnam was daft. So was Benson. He’d wanted a quick shag — evidently so did she. He briefly wondered who her latest love interest would be before ushering this thought away. 

It was no use, as the tale of his own frustrated romance returned to the forefront of his mind. He kept trying not to think about it but that was impossible. There were so many reminders, the most obvious being who he was currently staring at.

It could have been perfect. So perfect. He was prefect, star student, with a father in a high ministry job, everything going for him. She was prefect, star student and athlete, dazzlingly beautiful, with a pureblood lineage and a grandmother in possession of the most powerful privately-owned company in the wizarding world. He had even believed in love back then. Just like he believed that asking the sorting hat to place him in Gryffindor would give him a cunning foundation for an ambitious future. (Nobody doubted Gryffindor’s chivalrous manners). Just like he believed she would also like him the way he liked her. 

Merlin couldn’t have made a better match himself. After graduation, his father would have helped secure him a starting position in an important ministry office; he’d be the brilliant protégé with smarts, looks, a flawless reputation, and a gorgeous, wealthy, well-connected girlfriend to boot. He could have been Minister of Magic within ten years. 

Or so he had once dreamed. Or so his father had once dreamed.

Then it all came crashing down. He should have known it wouldn’t have gone to plan when he first touched Natalie and that fascinating power had nearly overwhelmed him. When she hadn’t even realized they had been on a date. When she couldn’t just stay by his side at a party like the useful little thing she was meant to be. 

Everyone knew that was what the high ministry officials’ wives did. They spun around the room with their husbands so they could be flaunted and compared, and then later they would all take part in the womanly gossip that determined or destroyed where you stood within the social fabric of the wizarding world. His mother had explained to him they held more power than it seemed, and that the key to a successful political career was to play the social game. He needed someone attractive and well-liked on his arm. 

That seemed like ages ago. He knew it was all Tom Riddle’s fault. Now, Oberon was reduced to nothing. No prefect badge, no favoritism from the professors, no father with a Ministry job, no girlfriend from a renowned pureblood family, no prospects. All he was left with was several others who were frustrated about Tom Riddle and an unslaked desire to push the blonde witch who always sat beside Riddle into a broom closet and have his way with her, dull eyes or not.

Andrew Osborne snatched Oberon from his lusty brooding. Evidently, he and Miles Fletcher had also taken to gawking over at the Slytherin table. “She’s leaving. She leaves early a lot now.”

“Yeah, ever since you turned her brains to stew,” Oberon said this gruffly. He was upset about it. Not that she didn’t look any less fit, but a thunderstorm was always more exciting than a flat gray sky.

“She always looks like she’s in pain when she leaves early,” Benson pointed this out too. Oberon had noticed it days ago. “Oh, and there goes Riddle after her. Think they’re going to shag?”

“No!” Oberon snapped. Not because he didn’t think it was true, but because the thought of it made him furious. It should be him getting to fall into bed with her.  _ Him.  _ Not Tom Riddle, with the muggle-sounding name and second-rate background.

He didn’t hear whatever Benson said next, because he was overtaken by the impulse to follow them. He knelt to this sudden whim and sprang up from the Gryffindor table. 

Oberon assumed they would head towards the dungeons, to the Slytherin common room. Instead, he was surprised to glimpse the tall figure of Tom Riddle on the stairs leading up into the castle. That meant they had to be going to the Room of Requirement. It was the ideal spot to snog or shag, if you knew about it. Everyone else just settled for a broom closet or an empty classroom. 

With most of the castle still at dinner, he had no trouble following them. He made sure to remain at least one corridor away, to avoid detection. But they had barely made it to the third floor when he nearly barrelled right into them. Except they weren’t shagging. They weren’t even snogging. They were fighting.

Oberon managed to jump behind the creaky suit of armor on the corner of the hallway they were in and the one he was in as he heard Natalie growl at Riddle. “ _ Stop  _ following me.” 

He didn’t hear Riddle’s reply, it must have been spoken too softly.

“I’m fine. I just want to be left  _ alone.  _ I don’t need to be  _ escorted. _ ”

Again, he failed to hear Riddle’s response. He wondered if it had been as merciless as Natalie’s voice.

“You don’t have to talk so bloody loud.”

This baffled him, until he realized that sounds must be fine-tuned and much louder for her as a result of the head injury. It was still astonishing, because Riddle had to be whispering.

“Oh. . . well block me out then.”

“Maybe try exerting control.” This was the first time he heard Riddle. He sounded just as furious as Natalie. 

“That’s a bit hard right now.”

“It’s almost been a month.”

“So? You know what my head’s like right now.”

“You need to focus or you’ll never-”

“Shut up.”

“Stop trying to-”

“No, shut up, Tom.” This made Riddle fall silent. Hearing the simple name sent a thrill of deep-seated annoyance through Oberon. The way it spun out of her mouth and twirled through the air. . . he wanted her to say  _ his  _ name like that.

He got so caught up in his fantasies over what Natalie would look like saying his name in the same manner, he didn’t realize his hiding spot had been compromised until he was staring into a pair of gray eyes that were darkening with dangerous precipitation. He was vaguely aware of the towering figure of Tom Riddle standing behind her, but he seemed irrelevant compared to the blonde creature right in front of him. 

“Hello, Talon.” His surname didn’t sound quite as tempting coming from her lips as he’d hoped. “What are you doing?”

“Uh,” he hadn’t planned to confront them like this. It had all been rather reckless. Hotheaded, even. He wondered if Benson and the others were rubbing off on him. “Just walking.”

“Just  _ walking _ ,” now her voice sounded as rhythmic as rain falling onto a still lake. It made him shiver. “Just walking — where?”

“Room of Requirement.”

“And what’d you plan to do there?”

“Use it.” As Oberon said this, he stepped out from behind the suit of armor — and deliberately tripped over its foot. He stumbled forward, flung out a hand and grabbed onto Natalie’s arm to break his fall. 

Oberon understood several things in doing so. 

One: he could  _ not  _ feel the energy he hoped to experience in touching her. 

Two: this upset him more than he could understand. 

Three: she was very angry. 

Four: Tom Riddle was very angry. 

Oberon expected a curse or a spell thrown his way. He did not expect Natalie to shake him off and then connect her fist with his face. 

He staggered from the blow, falling back against the wall where his knees gave out because the punch felt like it had sucked all the energy right out of him. As he collapsed, the suit of armor beside him dashed itself to pieces. Oberon weakly raised his arms to protect his face from the thick metal as helmet, cuirass, gauntlets, greaves were sent flying through the air as if the armor had exploded from within. 

When it stopped raining medieval armor, he uncovered his face and looked around him. He was alone. The corridor empty, save the dull torches, scattered armor, and a depressing, lethargic deadness. 


	48. Year VII: Bloody Hell

Natalie Borealis lay in bed and stared up at the dark green hangings of the four poster. It was the last Saturday in November. She guessed it was probably around ten in the morning. Melania, Pamela, and Quinn had all gone out already. Probably with their boyfriends. Abraxas was visiting Hogsmeade this weekend, to Melania’s delight. Natalie, however, found herself driven to a frothing rage about everything. Last night Melania wouldn’t shut up about how excited she was to see Abraxas. Quinn had crooned about how blue Rosier’s eyes were. And Pamela had done nothing but boast over how well Nott performed in Transfiguration class.

She put a silencing charm around her bed last night so she could fall asleep. She’d been too tired to walk to the Room of Requirement, where she’d been sleeping the past few weeks. Sometimes Tom Riddle would be there too. She’d doze off on the plush couch and awake the next morning to find him next to her, absorbed in a book while his fingers threaded through her hair with such a gentle rhythm she hardly noticed. But sometimes his presence infuriated her so he would leave her alone. And she’d sit in the Room of Requirement and ruminate over how much her head had hurt that day.

It scared her. The head injury and its fallout. She was behind in classes, but Dippet thankfully cut her some slack. She’d have the Christmas break to make up the work she’d missed. She just couldn’t focus. Writing essays was exhausting. Words would start to blend together after a while. 

But the scariest part was that she didn’t really feel anything at all other than uncontrollable rage. Everything was absolutely maddening. The boring conversations her dorm-mates held. The tedious homework she was assigned. The screaming first years who ran up and down the halls. Having to sit in class all day. Having to walk all around this bloody school with the bloody stairs that bloody moved. Having to eat in the Great Hall with hundreds of loud, irritating, daft students. The stupid portraits and their annoying conversations. Missing out on Quidditch. How loud her teammates talked. Hell, how loud  _ everyone  _ talked. Then there were Tom Riddle’s dark eyes staring at her with disappointment. As if there was something wrong with her. 

Well, she knew there was something wrong with her. All she was doing was lying down and she was practically seeing red over the fact that Pamela hadn’t made her bed. Her pillows were on the bloody  _ floor.  _ And her night robes were haphazardly tossed on the foot of her bed, half hanging on the floor as well. Oh, and the stupid giant squid in the lake kept drifting by the windows of their dorm. Dragging his tentacles against the magical glass as if determined to aggravate her further. He had a whole bloody lake and he wanted to be right next to the Slytherin dormitories? Bloody hell. 

Muttering curses under her breath, Natalie pushed her covers off and rolled out of bed. Hunger was more powerful than anger, and since the head injury she’d been  _ starving  _ all the time. She gave herself a minute to adjust as her head throbbed from the change in position. 

A wet thwack told her the squid had again swam by the window. 

“Stupid bloody tentacle thing,” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes and marching to the bathroom. She noticed Quinn  _ also  _ hadn’t made her bed.  _ And  _ her pillows were on the floor too. The slobs she lived with. . . .

Natalie decided to take a shower. It didn’t help soothe her anger. All it did was remind her that her senses felt dialed up to 400. The water was too hot or too cold and both extremes made her dizzy and there was a low buzzing noise in her ears the entire time. Ridiculous.

The towel was soft at least. Telling herself this made up for the irritating buzzing hum she was constantly subject to, she walked back into the dorm and her wardrobe doors burst open by themselves. Saturday meant she could wear muggle clothes. She thought muggle clothes could be much more practical than wizard robes. Except, as she stared at her wardrobe, she found she didn’t feel like actually getting dressed that day. 

Shrugging at this sudden impulse, she tugged out one of her fluffy bath robes, shed the towel, wrapped the robe around her, and tied it securely. It went down to her knees and was almost as baggy as her Hogwarts robes. 

Reaching up to tug at her wet hair, she groaned aloud at how much effort it would involve to find her wand (she had no idea its present whereabouts) and then think of the spell to dry it. This thought was barely out of her head before the hand that tugged at her hair found itself running through dry blonde tresses. Natalie froze, her other hand flying up to her head to check if her hair was actually dry. It was. 

She shook off the oddity of it. Just another example of the weird shit that kept happening. 

A dull thud. Again. She turned and nearly screamed. The dinner plate-sized eye of the giant squid pressed against the dorm’s window, peering in at her with an intense curiosity.

A brief staring contest ensued.

“Well, what do you bloody want?” she snapped; the squid was just another thing that got her riled up. She hoped it at least hadn’t watched her change. Bloody pervert.

It blinked. Once, twice, three times. Then it vanished.

“Bloody cephalopod,” she said and glanced around her dorm, wondering what she should do that Saturday. Hogsmeade was out of the question. It would be too bloody loud, and the third years always lost their shit when they stepped into Honeydukes. Then they’d go to the Three Broomsticks, have butterbeer for the first time, and act inebriated, like the annoying little cretins they were. She already had a pounding headache, and thinking about the antics of thirteen year olds made her want to leap off the astronomy tower.

Natalie grabbed her bag from the foot of her bed, she could work on one of the Charms essays due next week. Those were always easy. She found her wand on the floor beside it, and tucked it into the pocket of her bathrobe. 

She looked around the room again, sensing something different. Then it struck her. Pamela and Quinn’s beds were made up, pillows fluffed and returned, and all dirty laundry neatly piled for the house elves to care for. Natalie gaped. She hadn’t heard the girls come in, but she assumed they must have while she showered. Or it was more weird shit. She couldn’t be sure.

She needed to get out. Swinging her bag over her shoulder, Natalie ducked out of the dorm, charging towards the common room as fast as she dared without making her headache worse.

The common room appeared empty until she spotted Tom Riddle, sitting by himself near the fireplace, a heavy book in his hands. She wasn’t sure why seeing him looking so relaxed made her so annoyed. Maybe because her brain felt like it was grinding itself together in its rage.

Didn’t he have anywhere else to be? Why wasn’t he at Hogsmeade? Being charming and polite to any professor or girl who came along and wanted to talk to him. All the professors and girls always wanted to talk to him. It made her want to punch something.

“What’re you doing?” she stalked across the room, swinging her bag onto the couch opposite him. She felt hostile and combative and he was the only target in sight. And he was always doing things to provoke her anyways.  _ And  _ the fact that she knew she fancied him and that he fancied her only made her more enraged. How dare he  _ sit  _ there, looking so enchantingly content. 

“Reading,” he said, glancing up at her as if knowing full well what type of mood she was in. 

What a pathetic answer. He could at least say  _ what  _ he was reading. “Why? Why aren’t you at Hogsmeade? What’re you reading?”

The fireplace sprang to life. It flickered with hungry orange flames, nearly leaping out towards the furniture. Tom glanced over, studying it for a moment before turning back to her.

“ _ Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,”  _ he showed her the cover. She barely gave it a thought, she knew immediately. It might have been her Legilimency talents going haywire or a really good guess. 

“You’re reading about thunderbirds.”

“Yes.”

“Why? Why’re you so obsessed with everything about me?”

“It’s interesting.”

“What’s so interesting about it?”

“Everything.”

“Why?”

“What are you so mad about?”

“I’m not mad!” she barked at him. She knew she definitely was mad — but she didn’t like that he said it aloud to her. 

He didn’t say anything. He just raised a very aristocratic-looking eyebrow. She hated when he did that because it made her stop breathing. And not breathing made her head hurt more.

“Alright, I am mad,” she conceded so he could lower his stupid eyebrow and she could take a breath again.

He smirked. She nearly cursed aloud. She wanted to strangle him. His bloody smirk. So much for breathing. 

“Something we agree on.”

“Whatever,” she said, “why aren’t you at Hogsmeade?”

“Didn’t want to go.”

“That’s not a very Tom Riddle explanation.”

“I had a meeting with Dumbledore,” it was he who conceded this time. Natalie felt triumphant. “It ended sooner than I had anticipated.”

She grew suspicious. “Why did Dumbledore want to meet with you?” 

“It was about you, actually.”

“What?” her head gave a very painful throb. A hurricane spun within her, feeding off her rage. “Why was it about me?”

He smirked again. Damn the bastard. “He wanted to know how you were getting along, and if I could manage the Head Girl duties along with my own Head Boy duties.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“That I was managing just fine. And that I was sure you would be back to normal any day now.”

“Doubt it,” she muttered this more to herself than to him, but he heard her regardless. He always seemed to hear her. That aggravated her too. “What else did he say?”

“He asked his usual nosy and annoying questions, much like you are now.”

She swore to Merlin that Tom Riddle took it as his personal mission to see just how angry he could make her. Its effect was doubled because his antagonization worked and they both knew it. Her skull would burst open. She was convinced. 

She glared into his charcoal eyes — she hadn’t realized that he had abandoned his book and his chair and was now standing a few paces before her, on the opposite side of the couch. There was always something flickering behind his eyes. Sometimes it was just a few small embers burning, right now it was a full blown inferno, looking whipped up to an uncontrollable frenzy by gale-force winds. 

He took another step towards her. She wanted to take one back but found herself rooted to the spot. She was too busy watching the sparks clashing in his eyes. They seemed to react to the raging force that was winding up inside her — every draft of rage that blew through her seemed to buffet and incite whatever possessed his dark gaze. There was no way she could survive this. Her head had to implode, or explode, or maybe just collapse. 

But there was a whole couch between them. Right? Wait a minute. . . .

Natalie tore her eyes away from him. She looked around the room — the couch she had tossed her bag onto had skittered across the common room and tipped over. Her bag lay on the floor, parchment, books, quills, and ink scattered along the carpet. She stared at it, wondering how the hell that could have happened. Then her vision expanded and she studied the rest of the common room, ignoring Tom. 

The chair he had sat in was rammed up against the side of the brick fireplace, tipped up onto its front legs. The flames were clawing towards it. It would probably catch fire. She didn’t care if it did or not. The rest of the furniture was in similar positions. Couches and chairs and tables flung away from their original resting spots, strewn about the room as if a tornado had torn through the place and ripped everything up. 

A funny creaking noise drew her eyes to the large windows of the common room that gave a view of the Black Lake. A small gasp escaped her lips. The giant squid had returned. It was lazily moving its tentacles right outside the window, peering in with inquisitive eyes as if enjoying its daily entertainment. She wasn’t sure if the squid was watching the faceoff between her and Tom, or the network of cracks that were appearing in the glass windows. Natalie was vaguely aware of the cushioned chair finally catching fire as she stared at the giant squid. What was its problem?

Someone grabbed her shoulders. She flinched, trying to shake off whoever it was. The hands vanished. She froze, turning to watch Tom Riddle fly across the common room and land right in front of the burning chair. Bloody fuck had she done that?

The flames vanished. The chair was charred and beyond repair. That irritated her, it was Tom’s favorite chair. How dare it be useless. She glared at it, and under her wrathful gaze it repaired itself entirely. Returning to its plush, cushioned self. 

She blinked. Holy shit. Had she done that?

“Natalie!” Tom’s voice sliced through her overwhelmed reverie. Bringing her back to earth and forcing her to realize that she was standing in the middle of a destroyed Slytherin common room, where she had almost set Tom on fire, and there were cracks threatening to cave in the windows that separated the common room from the Black Lake. And the giant squid had glued itself to the glass as if waiting for it to break and flood the common room.

“Natalie!” he repeated and then he was right in front of her, looking battered and astonished yet determined. She caught a hint of delight under his concentrated exterior. “Focus. Look at me.”

She was already doing that. She glared at him. Didn’t he know her head hurt? And what was he looking so excited about? “I bloody am.”

He gestured around at the leveled common room. “Fix it.”

Fix it? Bloody fix it? She hadn’t even realized she had ruined it. And he wanted her to  _ fix  _ it? How the bloody hell was she supposed to do that?

“I don’t know how this all happened,” she knew she sounded like a complete idiot.

He crossed his arms and looked at her as he would look at a misbehaving first year. It annoyed her. A lot. 

“Yes, you do,” he said, “you woke up mad. Proceeded to grow more angry because of the head injury. Your energy reacts in sync with your emotions. It increased and needed an outlet. This is the result of that.” And he swept a hand over the tumbled furniture, the burn marks on the carpet, the spider web cracking in the windows — and, she understood this now, the incredible feeling of impending pressure within the room. Like the way the birds fall silent and the trees stop rustling just before a storm breaks. Inexorable doom. 

He just had to be so goddamn  _ smart. _ She knew he was at least somewhat right, but she still didn’t like it. 

“Okay,” she tried to avoid meeting his gaze. He was standing right in front of her. So close that if she looked up she could see every eyelash that surrounded his scorching eyes. “Well, I still don’t know how to fix it.”

“Do you want all of Slytherin house to come back from Hogsmeade later this afternoon and discover their common room flooded and demolished because the captain of their Quidditch team couldn’t control her emotions? The professors wouldn’t be able to ignore the damage to the school. Then Slughorn  _ and  _ Dippet are nervous about having such a volatile, clearly still injured student in charge of both a Quidditch team and the student population, as Head Girl. And besides — imagine how disappointed Salazar Slytherin himself would be, that a member of his own house was responsible for the destruction of his-”

“Alright!” Natalie had shut her eyes and covered her ears so she wouldn’t have to continue hearing his silky voice. What he was saying was horrifying to her. It was a terrifying perspective, despite the slight exaggeration. 

Her captaincy was at stake. Her trustworthiness. Her ambitions. Her prefect badge. Her Head Girl badge. Her life. 

She was sick of it. Sick of constantly being plagued by headaches and being irrationally angry over everything to the point that it affected her entire life. Sick of not being able to sit in the Great Hall because it was so loud. Or visit Hogsmeade. Or play Quidditch. Sick of not quite knowing how she was affecting everyone and everything else. Sick of questioning if an assignment actually was difficult or if she was hampered by the injury — or if maybe she was just bloody stupid after all and would never amount to anything and be a complete failure. Sick of worrying that the effects of the injury a month ago would last forever. 

She felt his hands clasp her face, they were gentle and cool. Hesitantly, she opened her eyes and found herself staring into his dark eyes. No longer blazing infernos, now they were the calm, steady flickering of sacred candles. The kind that you could stare into for hours, absorbed in the presence of the divine. 

Then he smirked. And she was reminded that he was not a god, but a sixteen year old wizard, albeit, a remarkable one. 

“Look,” he told her, moving her head within his hands so she could observe the common room. Everything was righted. Couches, chairs, tables, all back to their original spots. The glass windows were repaired entirely, though the giant squid was still floating outside. The common room looked as if it hadn’t ever been completely wrecked by something that could have been called a hurricane. 

“Oh,” she breathed, glancing back up to look at him. “Did I, uh. . . .”

“Yes,” he said, “good job.”

“Uh, thanks?”

He smirked again, and they both seemed to realize at the same time how close they were. Tom still holding her face the same way he would hold a precious artifact. Natalie stared up at him, unable to breathe, barely able to think. 

The second a particular thought popped into her head, it turned into reality. Tom leaned down and quickly kissed her lips. It was brief and modest, an exploratory dip to determine whether a hypothesis was correct. And the two of them certainly needed a lot of time to think about it once it had happened. Mulling it over like a fascinating experiment. Trying to understand if it made any sense. 

Natalie was frozen on the spot, because she was struck by a sudden feeling of incredible serenity. She forgot she was furious, she forgot was suffering from a head injury, she forgot she had a pounding headache, she forgot that moments ago she had nearly obliterated the entire Slytherin common room, she forgot that the energy power she was gifted with kept manifesting itself in uncontrollable ways. None of that mattered because Tom Riddle stood in front of her and he was the embodiment of imperturbable strength and self-possessed power. And he had just  _ bloody kissed her.  _ Bloody hell.

Bloody hell — was also all Tom could think of at the moment. He felt as though he had been struck by lightning and then dropped into the center of a cyclone. It was as if his body was a conduit for an entire electrical storm. But it felt bloody good. He was tingling with an exhilarating feeling — like undeniable invincibility intertwined with a conquering sense of empowerment. And he knew it was because he had given in to an impulse and kissed her. 

Natalie began rapidly blinking at him, her eyelids like birds fluttering over the gray clouds above. “Wait. . . do it again.”

“What?” he stared down at her, now entirely dumbstruck. He knew the injury had essentially shut off the extraneous projection of her energy, but now it felt as though it might be turning itself back on. Could it be because he had kissed her? Or maybe it was just the way she was feeling at the moment. Still — another hypothesis to test out. With this in mind, he smirked and leaned down to kiss her again. 

Except this time, she threw her arms around his neck and held him in place while she returned the kiss. Tom was thoroughly convinced he had just been struck by lightning. Natalie felt certain she had never been injured at all.

“AHEM!” a voice caused them to scramble apart, taken by surprise and nearly falling over each other to see who had interrupted them.

It was, of course, Eric Dawson and Adolphus Lestrange. They glimpsed the shrinking form of Savanna Rowle behind them before she melted out of the common room, looking mortified. 

“So,” it was the smuggest, haughtiest, most arrogant they had ever heard Adolphus Lestrange speak. “I see you two have been  _ busy. _ ” He glanced around as if expecting to spot more evidence. Natalie was relieved she had (unintentionally) fixed the common room before they had arrived.

“It was, uh, um, an accident,” Natalie blurted out. Merlin this was so embarrassing. She would never live it down. “Dunno what happened, really. Anyway, um, I’m gonna go see if Madam Reese will clear me to play Quidditch. If she does, expect a long practice tomorrow. So, uh, yeah. Bye.” Without giving Tom another glance, she bolted out of the common room, pushing past Eric and Adolphus. She nearly ran right into Savanna Rowle, who’d been standing outside the common room, waiting for whatever was going on inside to blow over. Savanna screamed when Natalie burst out and rushed past her down the hall. 

Back in the common room, Eric Dawson had his arms crossed and gave Tom Riddle a very pointed look. “Well? How was the snog?”

Adolphus took the liberty to answer for him. “They barely snogged. But this is a great first step, I’m really proud of both of you.”

Tom didn’t respond. As if he wasn’t even aware of Lestrange and Dawson being there. His eyes glazed right over them both. He walked right past them as Natalie had and left them to themselves.

Lestrange looked over at Dawson. He was in an equal state of astonishment. “What the bloody hell?!”


	49. Year VII: Well Intentioned, Poorly Executed

The first practice with the Captain back did not turn out to be as punishing as the team anticipated. Partially because Natalie came down with a headache about halfway through. She refused to admit it to them, but they all knew what her squinted eyes, raspy voice, and foul mood meant.

Neil Lament had to resort to pretending to break his hand when hitting a Bludger. He then fell off his broom onto the pitch, forcing a worried Captain to land. The rest of the team, well aware of what was taking place, flew down after her.

“What happened?” Natalie demanded, striding over towards Lament, who had curled up on the ground, writhing and moaning in pain.

“I think my hand is broken,” he clutched his left hand to his chest. Eric Dawson let out an astonished noise, thoroughly impressed by Lament’s commitment to deceiving their Captain. Adolphus Lestrange shot a furious glare at him. If the Captain knew Lament was faking she’d be that more angry.

Natalie dropped down to one knee beside him, trying to get a better look at the injury. As she did so, she teetered, momentarily disoriented until Dawson jumped forward and grabbed her shoulder.

He had to retract his hand from her shoulder almost immediately. It wasn’t because Dawson had received a jolt of energy from the contact. He hadn’t received any sort of energy. But she’d glanced up at him with such raw pain in her eyes it nearly made his heart come to a standstill. “Um, you alright, Cap?”

“I’m fine,” they all knew this to be false. “Neil, do you think I can fix it or do you need the hospital wing?”

“Hospital wing,” Lament nursed his hand in such a way so Natalie could not see it and then began babbling. “Yeah. Immediately. Right now. I’m so sorry I can’t finish practice, it’s my dominant hand. I feel horrible, I don’t wanna let the team down-”

“It’s alright,” Natalie slowly rose to her feet while Evan Rosier helped Lament off the ground. “We were almost done anyway. We’ll all bring you to the hospital wing as a team.”

At her words, Neil shot a knowing glance at the other boys. His tactics had worked. They had to hide their grins but Lament knew he was getting treated to a round of butterbeers at the next team outing to Hogsmeade.

Natalie led them into the locker rooms. They briefly dropped their brooms and equipment off before they tramped up through the underground Captain’s Corridor and appeared in the castle. 

“Is it broken?” Cato Greengrass fell into step beside Neil Lament, determined to help sell this story.

Lament made sure the Captain saw his wince. “I think so. Guess I tried hitting a Bludger the wrong way. You know how crazy shit can happen in Quidditch.”

There was a round of laughter and agreement at this, though it quickly died when they spotted Natalie screw her eyes shut for a moment as if trying to block something out.

“Hey, uh, Cap,” Lament said as the group rose from the dungeon corridors. “You don’t have to walk me to the hospital wing, if you’d rather go grab something to eat. . . .”

“Yeah, I can go with Neil and the rest of you can head to the kitchens,” Cato Greengrass volunteered, glancing around to make sure the others understood what he was planning.

“Yeah, we’ll meet you down there,” Adolphus nodded at the two youngest on the team. Without missing a beat, Eric Dawson draped an arm over Natalie’s shoulder while gesturing at Rosier and Nott to assist. These two shuffled forwards and helped Dawson gently guide the Captain away.

“Um, yeah, okay,” Natalie acquiesced, not willing to argue with the team at the moment and allowing them to now lead her down the hall.

Lament and Greengrass walked towards the hospital wing until they estimated the rest of their teammates had arrived at the kitchens. Once they arrived outside the doors of the hospital wing, Lament finally stopped pretending to nurse a broken hand.

He high-fived Greengrass. “That worked like a bloody charm.” 

“You really think she doesn’t suspect you were faking?” Cato ran a hand through his hair and looked up and down the corridor as if expecting the Captain to jump out and yell at them.

“Nah,” Lament replied, “she can’t think much about anything with her headache. And she would never expect  _ me _ to fake an injury. Adolphus or Eric, anyday. I almost feel guilty about it.”

Greengrass laughed, “yeah that’s definitely true.” His voice then dropped off, growing concerned. “Do you think she’s acting weird  _ just  _ because of the injury?”

“Dunno,” Neil said, masking his own interest at this question. The Captain had been irritable and on edge — more so than usual — for the past few days. But now they didn’t know if it was because of the injury — or because of Tom Riddle. 

She still experienced symptoms from the head injury in late October. None of them had been able to convince her to go back to the hospital wing. Even yesterday in the common room when Lestrange mentioned that Riddle himself should just drag her to the hospital wing if she wouldn't listen to her own teammates, she nearly bit his head off — and then immediately ran out when Riddle walked in and asked what they were talking about.

Neil finally shrugged, summing up their overarching opinion about everything concerning their wild blonde leader. “It’s the Captain. She’ll be fine.”

Greengrass continued, clearly relieved they could talk about this without the presence of any of the others. “Do you think it’s because she and Riddle snogged? She’s been acting bloody mental since then. So has he. Adolphus told me Potions class is a nightmare, and that Slughorn even threatened to split them up as partners if they kept going at each other’s throats.” 

“I heard from Eric it wasn’t exactly a  _ snog _ ,” Lament rolled his eyes, “but Dawson gets fussy over Cap and her love life.”

“Yeah,” Cato sniggered, “because he’s not part of it.” 

“Don’t tell Cap that,” Lament scolded him, “or Riddle.”

“I won’t-” Greengrass’s eyes widened, and Neil turned to note whatever Cato had spotted behind him. “Bloody hell.”

Miles Fletcher, Andrew Osborne, and Thaddeus Fawley had just walked out of the hospital wing.

A faceoff ensued between the two Slytherins and three Gryffindors. The tension was palpable as the five silently stared at the opposition, not willing to move, think, or even breathe, lest it provoke the other side. 

Now, the Gryffindors had no evidence connecting the Slytherins to the fact that a few days ago, Andrew Osborne had ended up in the hospital wing, vomiting uncontrollably and with such a severe migraine he fainted. Neil Lament and Cato Greengrass would deny any knowledge of why this may have plagued Osborne. But Thaddeus Fawley just  _ knew _ that the two Slytherins he stumbled upon outside the hospital had  _ something  _ to do with what had happened to Andrew Osborne.

“What’re you two doing here?” Fawley spat. Greengrass and Lament were younger than he was, they hadn’t been on the Slytherin team as long as, say, Lestrange or Rosier. He felt he had the upper hand in this confrontation and would use it to his advantage. 

“We’re just walking,” Lament replied with irritation. “Is that illegal?”

“Why are you ‘walking’?” Miles Fletcher barked at them. 

Andrew Osborne jumped in, furious about his stint in the hospital wing. “Who else are you going to curse?” 

“What’re you talking about?” Cato Greengrass had ignorance plastered all over his face. Thaddeus Fawley thought they were damned good actors. But he didn’t care. This was the perfect opportunity to make a statement to Slytherin, to avenge his brother’s injury, and what had been happening to seemingly everyone he knew in his house for the past few months.

“Don’t play dumb,” Fawley snapped at them. “Which of you did this to Andrew? Which of you cursed my brother? And then Putnam, Abbott, everyone else? Is it a team effort or do you call dibs on people?”

“Who was it?” Osborne hissed, pulling his wand from his pocket and aiming at the two Slytherins, who immediately wished they had just continued practice and hadn’t thought of some elaborate plan to end it early, despite the Captain’s headache.

“Woah,” Lament took a step backwards, raising his hands. He didn’t want any trouble. This was not the time and place. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about-”

“Stop lying!” Miles Fletcher yelled, his own wand now pointed at the Slytherins. “You bloody snakes are always lying! You could at least fight us like men!”

“You call yourselves men?” Greengrass snickered and Lament shot him a warning look. The comment was hilarious but now was certainly not the time to get snarky. “You can’t even play a Quidditch game without nearly killing someone.”

“Shut up!” Osborne flashed his wand at Greengrass and the Keeper let out a surprised shout. He buckled as if he had been punched and his hand flew to his face. Lament watched as he removed it to study the damage. It was covered in blood — his nose was definitely broken.

“Oi, what the bloody hell is wrong with you lot?” Lament snarled, instinctively taking a step forward and abandoning his defensive position upon seeing the injury to his teammate. He drew his wand and aimed it at the Gryffindors. 

“What’s wrong with us?” Fawley repeated in astonishment, “what the bloody hell is wrong with  _ you _ ?”

“A lot is wrong with  _ you, _ ” Osborne took the liberty to reply to this rhetorical question.

Neil contemplated the odds of getting into a duel with three Gryffindors. They were older — and they were pissed off. He knew he was quicker, and he had Greengrass, who had recently demonstrated a natural aptitude for dueling. But Greengrass currently had so much blood running out of his nose he began to choke on it. And an open air duel between themselves and the three Gryffindors would get around the school. The staff would hear about it. Then it could possibly link the Slytherin Quidditch team, and the group who called themselves the Knights, to the occurrences which had landed so many Gryffindors in the hospital wing.

In that moment he was immensely glad he was not the decision maker of the group. That was Tom’s job. He planned things, and they carried them out. Tom’s plans never failed. And it was so much easier that way for the rest of them. He wondered briefly if the Captain would be disappointed by his indecisiveness in the face of opposition. But this wasn’t a Quidditch game. There were no Quaffles, Bludgers, Snitches. No match up strategies. No lineup switches.

And then Neil realized he had taken too long to make a decision — it had been made for him. Osborne’s wand twitched again and pain exploded across his face. He nearly dropped his wand as he clutched at the mess of blood and broken bone and distorted cartilage his nose had been reduced to. Apparently Andrew Osborne only knew one spell. 

He coughed out a mouthful of blood and glared at the Gryffindors. Fawley had cast Expelliarmus at Greengrass, and his wand had been sent down the hall. They looked delighted with their handiwork and eager to continue.

For all his hesitation before, Neil was struck with decisive inspiration. He raised his wand, appearing to be aiming at the Gryffindors but actually aiming for the doors to the hospital wing behind them. As he shot a spell to open the doors, Fletcher and Osborne each cast a hex towards the Slytherins. One sent Greengrass flying into the stone wall behind him. The other made Lament’s knees cave in, and he went crashing down to the floor with a yelp.

The Gryffindors laughter was then interrupted by a thunderstruck voice.

“WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?” Madam Reese, alerted to the showdown going on in the corridor just outside the wing, had witnessed the last two hexes cast by the Gryffindors when Lament muttered a spell to open the doors of the hospital wing. 

She rushed out into the hallway to find Cato Greengrass crumpled against the wall, blood staining his robes and face, and Neil Lament on all fours, hacking up his own blood, while three Gryffindors, one whom she had just released, stood over them with their wands out, looking quite pleased with themselves. This soon changed. 

The Gryffindors started shrieking explanations.

“This is justified!” an outraged Thaddeus Fawley flew over to the authority figure. 

“They’re the reason I was in the hospital wing!” Andrew Osborne bellowed, pointing at the two Slytherins, who looked rather helpless from Madam Reese’s perspective. 

“They started it!” Miles Fletcher flung his wand in the direction of the Slytherins and accidentally sent another curse flying just over Neil Lament’s head. It harmlessly impacted the wall but left a rather deep scorch mark on the stones. That was when Madam Reese exploded.

“Nonsense!” she shouted over the eruption of yelling from the Gryffindors. “No fifth or even sixth years could know a spell even close to what plagued you, Mr. Osborne! I don’t want to hear it! I know exactly what happened here! In my opinion, you all take Quidditch a bit too seriously! Save it for the next game! Mark my words, I’ll be speaking to your head of house AND the Headmaster about this. Now, OUT!” she hustled the Gryffindors away so she could inspect the bleeding Slytherins. In shock at how quickly their fortunes changed, the Gryffindors vanished. 

Reese flew towards Neil Lament, who, had he not been rapidly losing blood from where his nose once was, would have been congratulating himself for handling the situation with such dexterity. He couldn’t wait to tell the others. 

“Alright dear, let me see — ah, broken nose. Nothing that can’t be fixed right up.” A swift muttering of a spell, and Lament felt a warm glow over his face. There was a painful crack when his nose popped back into place but he grew relieved when Madam Reese declared him perfectly fine, albeit, covered in blood.

She did the same for Greengrass, who had suffered no more than Lament had, save a bit more bruising. 

Madam Reese waved them away, not bothering to ask questions. She, as she claimed, already knew what had happened, and it was just rotten luck that Lament and Greengrass had been passing by as the pugnacious Gryffindors were looking for a fight. 

Lament and Greengrass shuffled off down the corridor, nearly hanging onto each other in their shocked glee. They’d been attacked but somehow had made Gryffindor look like absolute fools. They had to tell the team immediately. 

“Wait, they’re probably still at the kitchens,” Greengrass blurted out when the two arrived outside the entrance to the Slytherin common room.

“Bloody hell,” Lament realized he’d completely forgotten about everything else in comparison to the confrontation with the Gryffindors. “That’s right. Let’s go.”

They raced to the other side of the castle, towards the Hufflepuff common room and the kitchens. Silently thanking all the Quidditch workouts for ensuring they weren’t out of breath while they opened the passage to the kitchens and stumbled in, practically falling over themselves to inform the team of what had happened.

“You won’t believe this!” Lament exclaimed as they burst into the kitchens. The rest of the team was standing around or sitting on one of the large tables in the kitchens, surrounded by attentive house elves, catering to their every whim. 

“Won’t believe what?” Lestrange asked as he, Dawson, Rosier, Nott, and the Captain turned to eye them. “What happened to you?”

“Is that  _ blood _ ?” a cold gust of wind sliced through the kitchen as the Captain noted their appearance. Even the house elves fell silent, freezing in their spots as all eyes turned to Neil Lament and Cato Greengrass. “Is that blood?” she repeated this demand. She sat with her legs crossed on one of the tables, Eric Dawson and Adolphus Lestrange on either side of her. Dawson’s arm was wrapped around her shoulders, but as her posture straightened, he withdrew it. “ _ Your  _ blood?”

“Er, yeah,” Lament suddenly wasn’t so eager to regale them with the tale. He remembered he had also faked an injury and lied to the Captain — which had gotten him into this situation. “It’s mine.”

“And Greengrass?”

“It’s my blood too,” Cato said, now beginning to look petrified.

“What happened?” she hopped down from the table and stared between her two youngest players with crossed arms and a mask for a face. They couldn’t be sure if she was angry at them or at whatever had happened to them. Lament noticed one good thing — it seemed all traces of her headache had vanished. That, or she was too furious to notice. 

“You explain,” Greengrass coughed, pushing Lament forward.

“Well, we went to the hospital wing,” he began with this, as it wasn’t technically a lie. “And when we got there, Andrew Osborne was released at the same time. Fawley and Fletcher were with him too. They saw us. . . and, well, started blaming us for Osborne being in the hospital wing.”

“And every other random reason why a Gryffindor had ended up in the hospital wing,” Greengrass added.

Evan Rosier jumped in, “okay, we actually had nothing to do with Griggs coming down with the Dragon Pox-”

“Shh!” Natalie growled at him, “this is about what happened to Neil and Cato, not whatever little escapade you lot were involved in.”

“So they attacked us,” Lament summed up. “It was three against two and right in front of the hospital wing.”

“Did you duel?” Lestrange asked, growing excited by the possibility of a showdown. “What spell did they use? What’s all the blood from?”

“Broken noses,” Greengrass explained, “Osborne is really bloody good at one spell. Thought I was going to bleed out right there.”

“What did you do?” Natalie hissed, taking another step towards them. She began to look manic. “What happened? Did you duel? Did someone see?”

“No,” Lament shook his head, “I shot a spell at the hospital wing doors. They opened just as they hexed us again. Madam Reese saw them. She came out, bloody freaked at them and then fixed us up.”

“I’m impressed, Lament,” Dawson grinned, “that’s the second time you’ve done something ingenious today.”

“What do you mean?” Natalie rounded on the green-eyed Chaser. Neil had glimpsed a hint of pride in her expression, as if she too was impressed by his actions, before she turned on Dawson. He relished in this fact while she was distracted by Dawson: the Captain was proud of him. “The second time?”

“Uh,” Dawson blanched, realizing he had compromised Lament’s false injury from the pitch. “You know, the kid’s just talented-”

“What’s he talking about?” the Captain whirled back to Neil. It had gotten hard to breathe in the kitchens. He found he had broken out into slight perspiration. He knew he couldn’t lie to her. She’d know immediately if he even tried, her gray eyes were pulling the truth out of him. 

Lament sent a last, desperate look at the others. Adolphus covered his face with a hand, Dawson looked apologetic. Nott was very interested in a goblet of pumpkin juice, and Rosier was somehow finding the whole situation very funny. Greengrass took a step away from him, as if to isolate Lament before the Captain’s intense gaze.

But she spoke first. “Your hand was never broken.” 

Neil’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. Had he said it? How had she known? He hadn’t told her anything, and clearly none of the others had. Had she known all along? Had she guessed? Had she read his mind? He knew she was gifted in Legilimency, but wouldn’t he have known if she peeked into his head?

The others looked just as baffled as he felt — so it was impossible they told her anything.

“You knew?” Dawson and Lestrange spluttered while Lament squeaked, “how’d you know?”

Her lips twitched in what might have been a mischievous grin or a pained grimace. He couldn’t be sure. But he was sure about the fact that the kitchens had become a very uncomfortable place to be. At first he thought it was just him, but then his ears popped and Greengrass and Nott flinched slightly, as though they were experiencing the same pressure drop. He was definitely sweating now, and there was a sense of imminence within the kitchens that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Something was approaching; he wasn’t quite sure what, but his primitive instincts were telling him to run and seek shelter. 

Lament glanced from Natalie, to the others to see if he was the only one feeling like this. He wasn’t. Lestrange and Dawson began to look worried. Nott abandoned his goblet of pumpkin juice, and Rosier wasn’t finding things very funny anymore.

“Miss Borealis,” a house-elf chirped from the Captain’s elbow. It looked pained to be there. “Please, storms aren’t good for the kitchens. Or us house elves. They hurt us very much.”

“What?” Natalie stared first at this elf, then at the rest of the elves in the kitchen. Each of them had dropped whatever they were doing to clutch at their long pointed ears as if someone was trying to chop them off. A few were wailing like they were being tortured. “What’s happening to them?”

“You!” another squealed, turning and running as far away from the Quidditch players as possible. 

“Let’s go,” Adolphus Lestrange seized control of the situation. He leaped forward and snatched Natalie’s arm, moving to lead — or drag — her out of the kitchens. When he grabbed her, Lament witnessed him audibly gasp in pain, as if experiencing a sudden, excruciating shock. “Bloody  _ fuck- _ ”

“What?” the Captain repeated, not understanding what was happening around her. The house-elves were still shrieking and sobbing and their noise certainly did not help.

“Nothing, let’s just get out of here,” Dawson announced and that was when the rest of them scrambled out of the kitchens, hustling their very confused Captain along with them while trying not to get too close to her.

As the six boys stumbled into the corridor outside, their Captain somewhere between them all, Lestrange grabbed a hold of Lament’s robes and pulled him close. He still looked to be enduring tremendous pain. He nursed one of his hands, and Lament thought he glimpsed harsh red welts on his skin. “We’ll go outside with her. Get Riddle — now.”

Lament nodded his understanding, and peeled off at a run down the corridor towards the Slytherin common room, while the others headed towards the entrance hall.


	50. Year VII: Rennervate, Or Lack Thereof

Neil Lament was panting by the time he skidded to a stop outside the common room. Though he wasn’t sure if it was from the exertion or from finally being able to breathe once out of the Captain’s sphere of influence. He burst into the common room, nearly knocking over Olive Hornby, who let out a scream at his sudden appearance. 

Scanning the room until he found who he was there for, he locked eyes with Tom Riddle. The Head Boy sat in his usual chair near the fireplace, immersed in a thick book. Aware the common room was full and everyone stared at his wild entrance, all Neil could do was raise an arm and point in the direction he had just come. (He realized with dismay it was with the hand he had pretended to break. It shook uncontrollably.)

Tom must have understood immediately what must be occurring, as Neil hoped he would. He closed the book, rose from his seat and strode over towards Lament. His pace and manner the epitome of composure. It made everyone watching return to whatever had occupied their attention before the scene Lament caused upon arrival.

Tom Riddle walked right past him and into the empty hallway outside. Lament trailed after him, fumbling for words to explain the situation. 

“You do know you’re covered in blood, right?” Tom remarked as they began strolling down the corridors, at a pace which seemed far too relaxed for the circumstances. 

“What?” Neil had completely forgotten about this. “Oh, yeah. Gryffindor attacked me.”

Tom stopped short but quickly resumed walking. At a much speedier pace, to Neil’s relief. “Explain.”

Lament summarized the events of the past hour as best he could, without pausing too much. Tom Riddle, who’d styled himself Lord Voldemort (a name which Lament’s teammates — especially Lestrange and Dawson — found incredibly delightful), scared him almost as much as the Captain. 

“So. . . two of her teammates are attacked, including her appointed successor to the captaincy, only for her to find out that said successor had in fact, faked an injury and lied to her — getting yourself into this whole mess. Regardless of whether or not it was in her own best interest, I  can’t  imagine why she’s so upset.” Neil couldn’t be sure if Tom was amused or exasperated. Perhaps both. Definitely both. Natalie always seemed to make him both, especially since Adolphus and Eric caught them kissing in the common room. 

“Uh, yeah, yeah I guess that’s what happened.”

“Why were you faking an injury?”

“Oh,” Neil realized he must have forgotten that part. What had caused the whole debacle. It was technically all Gryffindor’s fault, if you went back far enough. “Cap had a headache. She wouldn’t admit it, but we all knew. She did that thing where she scrunches her face up and Dawson thinks she looks really adorable-”

“Relevant information only,” Riddle waved this aside. 

“Oh shit, yeah, uh, she had a headache. Wouldn’t say anything though. You know how it’s her first day back and she’s supposed to take it easy? Obviously, she wasn’t.”

“I’m shocked,” he deadpanned this and Neil almost found himself laughing at the whole situation. 

“Wait,” Neil stopped his merciless pace. Tom had started heading towards the seventh floor, the Room of Requirement. “They said they were going to take her outside.”

Tom gave him an annoyed look. “Why didn’t you start with that?”

“Dunno,” Neil scratched the back of his neck, following Tom as he reversed towards the entrance hall of the castle.

But the rest of the team had never made it outside. The reason soon became apparent to the two as they arrived at the entrance hall.

Oberon Talon stood between the entrance doors and six very angry Slytherins.

Tom Riddle immediately moved to take charge of the situation. 

“What is going on here?” he slid his way between the Slytherins and Talon, observing the standoff for a moment. It appeared that Talon had been walking up from the grounds and happened to meet the Slytherin team just as they were attempting to head out. Naturally, words were exchanged, and everyone was in a right foul mood because at the center of them all was a gray-eyed thunderstorm who looked ready to tear out her hair in fury. Tom and Neil sensed it as they approached, then they got pulled into the center of the cyclone, where the air was hard to breathe and you were in danger of getting tossed about without discretion.

“I was just telling Talon here that if anyone from his house dares lay a hand on one of my teammates again, they will regret it to their dying day,” Natalie explained to Tom. Her voice was sweet and almost sing-song-like. Tom knew they were all walking on thin ice. In fact, it looked like she herself was walking on thin ice. Her words had been slow and her forehead was lined, she looked ready to either explode — or collapse.

“I was just walking up from the pitch when they all appeared,” Talon tried to voice his side of the story. “What, is walking illegal now?”

Natalie, apparently not having heard this before, whirled on the Gryffindor in a newfound rage. “Why were you at the pitch? You don’t even play Quidditch. And  we  were just practicing there. What were you doing-”

Her voice trailed away. The rest of her team grew bewildered, wondering what exactly was going on. But Tom Riddle knew. He could tell when she accidentally used Legilimency on someone. Since the injury, she had done it repeatedly to him, most times without even knowing. It had exasperated him — but whatever she was glimpsing in Talon’s mind was not exactly. . . pretty. 

No one had time to react before Natalie vaulted forward, flinging herself at Oberon Talon like a provoked predator. The boom might have been inside their heads, but they all heard it — or felt it, crawl through their ears and into their minds. Natalie had landed a single punch on Talon when a blinding light filled the entrance hall and everyone present found themselves thrown to the ground. 

Neil Lament struggled to his feet. He’d been tossed back, along with Rosier and Greengrass. Dawson, Nott, and Lestrange were nearby, also fighting to stand. Further away was Tom Riddle, already standing up, with a very odd look on his face. He was staring near the doors, where Natalie was limp on the floor. Beyond her was Oberon Talon. 

From the looks of it, the doors had been flung open, Talon had been blasted away from Natalie, and had literally been sent flying out of the doors to the castle. He lay on the snow-covered ground outside, dangerously pale and in a state of shock. Neil watched as he rolled onto his side and began coughing until blood spat out of his mouth, staining the white snow a gory scarlet. It struck him as an uncanny parallel. He briefly wondered if the Captain had deliberately done it. 

“Lestrange, Dawson,” Tom Riddle was the first to fully recover himself from the eruption. “Get everyone to the common room. I’ll deal with the Captain and Talon. There will be professors here soon.”

“Right,” Lestrange wheezed, helping Lament to his feet. Dawson did the same for Rosier. Nott was already rocking back and forth on his toes, wanting to sprint away from the scene. Greengrass looked ready to vomit, letting out a groan as he stood up. “Let’s go!”

The six boys stumbled and teetered their way out of the entrance hall and back towards the Slytherin common room. 

Meanwhile, Tom Riddle turned his attention to Oberon Talon. If he kept popping up in places where he shouldn’t be, he wouldn’t last very long on this earth. For a moment after the initial blast (which Tom believed had been an unintentional discharge of energy from a raging Natalie Borealis), Tom feared she may have accidentally killed Talon. That would be much harder to cover up. But thankfully, Talon was alive and well. Albeit, choking on a lot of blood and ruining the innocent white beauty of the falling snow. He was lucky they were all still in school, else Tom would have been happy in allowing Natalie to “accidentally” make sure he never bothered them again. 

Tom rushed over to Oberon Talon, drew his wand and muttered a spell. His memory of this event would definitely have to be altered. It took no time at all to edit his mind. Tom found he was becoming quite good at doing this, he even enjoyed it. He watched with dark pleasure as Talon’s brain overloaded from the meddling and he fainted. 

Then he moved to Natalie. She was lying just inside the entrance doors, motionless. She’d fallen unconscious — he theorized the eruption of energy had overwhelmed her senses, and she’d passed out as her brain shut down. 

“ Rennervate ,” he murmured, pointing his wand at her this time. She didn’t move. Growing concerned, he tried the spell again. Then nonverbally. Still nothing. For a moment he had the absurd idea that if he kissed her, she would wake. But this wasn’t a silly muggle fairy tale. So he tried to reach into her mind, but found a thick wall of churning clouds battering him away. She was locked in her own brain and there was nothing he could do about it. A thin tendril of panic began wrapping itself around him. 

“Tom?” he looked up; his prediction had come true. Professor Dumbledore hurried towards him, Headmaster Dippet beside him. “What happened?”

“I just came across them, Professor,” he gestured to the fallen Oberon Talon outside the entrance doors, then at Natalie. “I found them both like this. My guess is Mr. Talon tried to attack Miss Borealis, who then went to defend herself. I’m not sure what spells they used but they’re both unconscious.”

“Well, we ought to ask them ourselves,” Dippet suggested, though it was clear he believed every word out of Tom’s mouth. He retrieved his wand and pointed it at Natalie. Dumbledore went to awaken Oberon Talon, outside the opening entrance doors of the castle. “ Rennervate. ”

Dippet’s spell failed. Natalie remained on the floor, blonde hair spread out like pale lava flows oozing all around her. Tom watched as the headmaster grew confused. He attempted the spell again, and became worried. Tom tried not to let this increase his own panic. Dippet could be daft, he knew that. Perhaps Dumbledore would have better luck. Though Dumbledore being able to bring Natalie back to consciousness and not himself would be a personal insult.

“Albus,” Dippet looked up to where Dumbledore had successfully awakened Oberon Talon. “Come over here.”

Dumbledore led Talon inside the castle, guiding the unsteady, foggy Gryffindor to take a seat against the stone wall. The entrance doors then swung shut with a loud creaking noise. Tom glanced up at the noise — and nearly stopped breathing. On the entrance doors was an enormous black scorch mark — looking quite literally like lightning had struck it — and it was spreading. Slowly creeping along the huge entrance doors like a disease. Barely perceptible until you noticed the darkening of the wood, tinting the doors black like a flourishing plague. 

He knew it had to be from Natalie. He also knew he could not allow Dumbledore or Dippet to notice it, or else the showdown between Oberon and Natalie would become a lot more interesting.

Tom stepped aside to allow Dumbledore to view the unconscious Natalie, moving so he stood between the doors and the professors. Hopefully they would not look up, if they did, he would block their view from some of it — at least until the parasitic-looking mark covered the total area of both doors.

Now he was beginning to worry. None of this had ever happened before — what was on the entrance doors, and Natalie had never been knocked unconscious by her own energy. Perhaps the injury still had something to do with it? Lament had mentioned how she had a headache during Quidditch practice earlier. 

“ Rennervate, ” Dumbledore tried the same spell — to no avail. Like Dippet, he repeated it again, only to achieve nothing but his own bewilderment. Tom found it morbidly amusing to see the two professors fail and was delighted Dumbledore had also been unsuccessful in attempting to revive her. 

Dumbledore glanced up to Tom. “You didn’t happen to see what spell hit her, did you?”

“No, sir, they were both already unconscious when I arrived.”

“We can’t rule out the presence of a third party,” Dippet added, fear beginning to tint his voice. “Albus. . . you don’t think it might be something related to what happened. . . with the Warren girl?”

“I think we need to focus on getting Natalie to wake up,” Dumbledore said, conjuring a stretcher with a wave of his wand. “Tom, run ahead and inform Madam Reese her favorite patient will once again be returning to her. And tell her to prepare a Calming Drought for Mr. Talon.”

Not willing to argue in front of both Dumbledore and the headmaster, Tom nodded and darted off down the hall, urgently hoping neither of them bothered to inspect the entrance doors too closely.

He, Dippet, and Dumbledore had all tried to awaken Natalie. Using the same spell, of course. Was there a different spell they should have been using? Perhaps there was something particular about Natalie’s energy — what had caused this whole situation — that required a different magical approach. Would Madam Reese even know anything about it?

Concern began to blossom within him. What if Reese or Dumbledore became aware that there was something. . . interesting about Natalie? Dumbledore was certainly getting irritating, constantly asking Tom about her. If he was showing interest, that could mean he was suspicious. And something about a suspicious Dumbledore snooping about, learning that one of his students possessed a unique magical energy, made Tom very anxious indeed. And the doors. . . the doors could give it all away.

Tom arrived at the hospital wing faster than he’d anticipated. He was still churning thoughts over in his mind when he tugged the door open and barrelled down the aisle to Madam Reese’s office. He found her rushing towards him already, as if knowing he had been coming.

“More accidental magic, I suppose?” Reese snarked as Tom stopped short, taken by surprise at her appearance. “Who is it this time?”

“Natalie Borea-”

“That girl! Again!” Madam Reese threw her hands in the air but then grew so stiff and solemn, Tom found himself beginning to catastrophize. What if Reese couldn’t get her to wake up? What if nobody could? “What happened? I just cleared her to play Quidditch. Did she hit her head again?”

“Not exactly,” Tom had no idea how to describe the situation. “Professor Dumbledore is bringing her here. Along with Headmaster Dippet. They also requested you prepare a Calming Drought for Oberon Talon.”

At the mention of the professors, Reese looked briefly taken aback before she bustled over to retrieve the potion. As she did so, the wing doors opened again and Dumbledore levitated Natalie in on a stretcher. He floated her over to the nearest bed, settled the stretcher on it, then vanished the stretcher. Dippet came in behind him, talking quietly to a perplexed Oberon Talon.

Madam Reese hurried over with the Calming Drought, handing it off to Dippet — who looked distressed he was still involved with this situation — and focusing her attention on Natalie. This pleased Tom. He hovered just behind the nurse, watching as she retrieved her wand.

“What did you say happened to her?”

“I didn’t,” Dumbledore replied with a twinkle of his eye. Tom wasn’t quite sure why — this was no lighthearted situation. A horrible fear overtook him — could Dumbledore have seen the entrance doors and extracted some conclusion from them? “Tom, could you explain?”

“I came across them in the entrance hall. Both unconscious. They must have dueled and whatever spells they used knocked them out.”

“I’ve revived Mr. Talon, who is very confused about his whereabouts, and can’t recall any duel. For some concerning reason, we have been unable to revive Miss Borealis,” Dumbledore explained, his eyes were no longer twinkling, which appeased Tom. 

“Hm,” Madam Reese narrowed her gaze at the motionless figure of Natalie as if trying to see through her. “ Reenervate. ”

“We’ve all tried that,” Dippet called from where he watched Oberon Talon finish off the Calming Drought. Talon then stumbled to the nearest bed and fell into a deep sleep. Dippet gave him a nervous look. “Will the boy be alright?”

“Yes, he’s fine,” Reese said, “just shaken up, but he’s at least awake. Or was. Unlike this one.  Reenervate. ”

Dippet let out an awkward little cough. “As I said, we’ve already attempted that. Multiple times.”

“Yes, well, none of you are healers, are you?” Reese snapped, “ rennervate. ”

Tom expected nothing to happen, just as before. What he was not expecting at all, however, was for Natalie to leap up out of the bed, screaming.

“Stop! Stop it! Right now!”

Madam Reese and Professor Dumbledore stepped back in astonishment. Even Dippet, now hurrying his way across the room, froze in his tracks and let out a squeak of surprise. Tom remained rooted on the spot, transfixed by whatever had seized hold of Natalie.

“Stop what?” Madam Reese was bewildered as Natalie stood before them all, panting for breath the same way she would after a wild Quidditch game. 

“That bloody spell!” she growled, unconcerned about her language in the presence of both the deputy headmaster and the headmaster.

“Natalie,” Dumbledore’s voice sounded patient to the point of being paternal. “Do you know where you are?”

Natalie looked around for the first time, studying her surroundings with raging gray eyes. Tom couldn’t help but stare. He’d seen photographs of whirling hurricanes, orbiting around the depths of their eye. It was all he could think about at the moment. 

“Why am I in the hospital wing?” she sounded annoyed, then began to grow anxious. “What happened? Why am I here?”

“You were unconscious,” Dumbledore told her, “Tom found you in the entrance hall. Do you remember what happened?”

Natalie stared at Dumbledore for so long it worried Tom; either Dumbledore was trying to glimpse into her mind, or she was trying to glimpse into his. 

“I don’t,” she said and the look on her face told Tom that Dumbledore had attempted to use Legilimency on her — and failed. He relished in this fact. “I don’t know what happened,” she repeated. “I feel fine, though. Why’d you bring me to the hospital wing?” she glanced at Tom as if the whole situation was his fault. He narrowed his eyes at her in irritation.

“You would not wake,” Dumbledore said, beginning to look more and more intrigued by the situation. “Both myself and Headmaster Dippet attempted to revive you, to no avail. And, if it won’t be too injurious to our dedicated healer’s pride, I don’t believe it was Madam Reese’s use of the spell which finally did the trick.”

Madam Reese muttered under her breath at this, but focused on Natalie. “You were screaming, ‘stop’, my dear. Any reason why?”

“Yeah, I could feel each time you tried to use the spell, like you were blowing on my brain or something,” she admitted, glancing around at them all before her eyes settled on Tom. “All of you.”

Dumbledore looked fascinated, Dippet looked perplexed, Reese looked offended. Tom struggled to keep his smirk to himself. 

“Yet you could not — or would not wake?” Dumbledore asked.

“Couldn’t,” Natalie said, and Tom could tell she was beginning to become skeeved from Dumbledore’s interest in the situation. He wondered again about the entrance hall — if Dumbledore had noticed it. “Else I would have.”

“Curious, indeed,” Dumbledore muttered to himself. 

Dippet let out an exasperated sigh. “Well, if both Miss Borealis and Mr. Talon are all right-”

“Talon?” Natalie interrupted him, “Oberon Talon? Is he involved with this?”

“He was found with you, also unconscious,” Dippet hesitated to elaborate further, Tom knew he wanted to gloss over the situation that had happened at the Christmas party last year, preferring to pretend it never occurred. It put some of his students in a bad light, and that made Dippet uneasy. “We aren’t quite sure what took place, but if you’re feeling perfectly alright, Tom may escort you to the Slytherin common room.”

“Only if you come back here if you  aren’t feeling perfectly alright,” Madam Reese added this in as Natalie opted out of the situation at hand. Without looking at Tom, she hurried past him, Dumbledore, Reese, and Dippet. 

Tom followed her, they both maintained their composure until they were out of the wing and away from the faculty’s prying eyes. Then they broke into a breakneck sprint.

Tom was surprised when Natalie headed towards the entrance hall, rather than the dungeons to the common room. It was empty — most occupants of the castle having gone to bed by this hour of the night. Natalie stopped short and began prowling around the hall, as though searching for evidence.

“What are you doing?” Tom finally asked her.

“Looking,” she replied, her gaze settled on the closed entrance doors and Tom knew she saw it.

Tom strolled over until he was directly behind her, looking over her shoulder as she studied the wriggling black scorch mark on the doors. It had grown so big it covered both doors and looked to be planning on seeping into the stone walls around it. “You remember what happened, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” she said with a snort, running a hand over the now black doors. They cast a deadness into the entire entrance hall, as though all light and energy were being sucked towards the doors like inescapable black holes. Tom recalled a description of the presence of dementors and felt the two were eerily comparable. He knew her next words concerned this recent phenomenon. “I just don’t want Dumbledore or anyone else asking questions I don’t have answers to.”

“Understandable,” he agreed, going to say something further, but stopped when Natalie pushed on the doors and they swung open under her touch. Tom blinked, momentarily dumbstruck because now it seemed the lifelike black marks on the door, that were wriggling as if threatening to infect the entire castle — stopped moving altogether. And the doors grew stable — as if whatever had blackened them had been removed. No longer dementors draining the energy from the entrance hall. But the color remained changed. He supposed they would be that way forever. 

Natalie marched out through the huge doors and onto the grounds. The early December snow was still falling, coating the ground with a soft white blanket. Tom pursued her, baffled as to what she was doing. 

“Where are you going?” he called out and she turned, surprised he had followed her. Snowflakes whirled and danced around her, as though they were being attracted and then repelled by some invisible force. Tom had a fairly good idea of what it was. 

“I’m going for a walk,” she told him, sounding like a child who was scolded for trying to play a game in a situation where games were the last thing one ought to be playing. “Where are  you  going?”

“I’m following you,” he said, approaching so he was only a few steps away from her. As he did so, he found himself shivering. Not from the cold or the snow, but from the burning energy exuding from her. It felt like a blazing fire — and it tempted him in a perniciously dangerous manner. As he studied her, he realized the snow frolicked and careened around her — yet never touched her. 

Confusion crossed her face. “Why are you following me?”

“Why are you going for a walk?”

“You saw the thing on the doors. And I could have killed someone.”

“It’s not like he didn’t deserve it.”

“I can’t just go around killing people at Hogwarts. No matter how much they deserve it.”

“It’s not like you haven’t done so before.”

Through the darkness, Tom saw her eyes widen. He stood right in front of her, close enough to touch, though he refrained from doing so. Like the snow, he found himself drawn to her, but unable to touch her. He wasn’t sure why, but it was the same instinct that told him not to run outside in a storm or stick his hand into a fire. Perhaps it was just common sense. 

She didn’t say anything. He knew the comment had kicked her into a fury. He expected her to growl, hiss, snap a retort, or even turn and flee. He didn’t expect her to reach out and grab his hand as though to prove some sort of point. 

Pain thundered through his hand, up his arm, and into his chest, it paralyzed him. It was like getting struck by lightning — but not the sappy, metaphorical kind. Not the kind he had experienced when he’d kissed her in the common room. In the lethal kind. In the raw energy wreaking havoc on your flesh and bones kind. The Cruciatus Curse condensed into a lightning bolt. 

He didn’t realize she had let go and taken a step away from him. He didn’t realize he had stumbled and nearly sank to the ground. He didn’t realize astonished distress had flashed across his face. 

“See?” she said, sounding disappointed he had experienced this torturous flash of pain. “That happened to Adolphus earlier, too. I didn’t understand, until I did. So just. . . let me bloody walk.”


	51. Year VII: Not Exactly the Same Type of Emotional Commiseration

Eric Dawson woke early on the last Saturday before Christmas break. He slipped out of the dorm without any of the others waking — only Tom Riddle’s bed was already empty. 

Eric headed down to Hogsmeade before anyone else, intent on having butterbeer for breakfast.

“I know the type,” the bartender at the Three Broomsticks greeted him with a wry smile, as if in on some shared secret. “What’s her name?”

“Huh?” Dawson stared at him, frozen as he attempted to exchange gold for butterbeer. “Oh. Is it that obvious?”

“To me it is,” the bartender laughed. He was a good-looking fellow who couldn’t be much older than Dawson. “But I’ve had my heart broken by every sly lass who walks in here.”

“Must be horrible,” he cleared his throat. This was the worst conversation he’d ever had. He just wanted to be alone with his butterbeer and his feelings. 

“Aye,” the bartender — he thought his name might be Gerald — nodded as if Dawson had just summarized his entire emotional capacity in three words. “That it is. That it is. Enjoy this, lad. Let me know if you need anything stronger.”

“Right,” Dawson nodded, finally taking his butterbeer and hurrying to sit as far away from the bar as possible. Though he’d keep the offer of something stronger in the back of his mind. 

It felt odd being at the Three Broomsticks alone. It wasn’t exactly a solo haunt. That was what the Hog’s Head was for. Everyone knew that. But the Hog’s Head gave Eric the creeps. And he really wanted a warm butterbeer — without anyone else being around him. 

Frankly, he didn’t know what to do. About his own feelings. The bartender was on the right track. But he didn’t know if he actually fancied her. Hadn’t that been years ago? Hadn’t they all got into a fight about it? Hadn’t they all been informed she was fancied by another, and that she fancied another?

The butterbeer was good. It was always good at the Three Broomsticks. But it made him feel warm and happy inside. Which wasn’t how he was actually feeling. The contrast confused him. Maybe he’d take up the bartender’s offer. Firewhiskey sounded about right. 

He would have asked Adolphus to come with him and they could commiserate — but Adolphus was happy. He fancied Savanna Rowle, and now they were in a relationship. The type of gooey, puppy-love relationship he and Adolphus had always made fun of. Now, Adolphus blushed redder than a Gryffindor’s scarf when Savanna fed him from her own spoon.

It sickened him. He was happy for his mate and all, but it still sickened him. He felt abandoned by his best friend. Another teammate happily in a relationship. First Rosier and Nott. Now Adolphus. Hell, even Neil Lament ran around with Cassiopeia Black. It was Dawson and Greengrass all by their lonesomes — and Greengrass looked to be eyeing Elizabeth Beckham, a pretty fifth year Slytherin. 

“Thought you might need this,” the bartender’s voice pulled him from his thoughts. He looked up to see — he was sure his name was Gerald now — slide a goblet of Firewhiskey towards him. “It’s on the house because I reckon I know who the girl is.”

“Oh?” Eric blinked at him, only for Gerald to incline his head towards the door of the pub, which had just swung open. After a gust of cold December air, Natalie Borealis stepped into the Three Broomsticks. 

* * *

Six in the morning is the best time to eat breakfast at Hogwarts. Everyone knows that. The food is fresh in the real way — not the magic way. The owls float around the ceiling and don’t divebomb you — they only do that in front of the entire student body for the drama of it. And anyone present is too tired to carry out much conversation. Which is why nobody was ever present, save Natalie Borealis. 

She sat at the Slytherin table, having a staring contest with her grandmother’s owl over a plate of food. She had already written a reply to her grandmother’s weekly letter and given it to the bird, which refused to fly away. This happened every week. The owl wouldn’t leave until she herself left the Great Hall.

So she let him stay and leer at her. Her grandmother had named the bird Zeus, because he acted like he owned her grandmother’s manor, and apparently, in his younger days, was quite the stud. 

Occasionally she’d throw him a piece of pancake. Which would hit him on the beak and fall to the table, either because his reflexes were awful, or he didn’t feel like moving. Zeus would then look at the food in disdain as if determining whether it was worthy to be eaten by him, king of the owls, and then gobble it up as if he had never eaten food before. Which was ridiculous — the bird was so pampered and spoiled by her grandmother, she had no idea how he was even able to fly. 

She didn’t mind the company. She’d been trying to avoid everyone for a week. It had finally come to her attention that everywhere she went, misery and depression followed. Everyone was irritable, anxious, or downright glum — and she knew it radiated from her. This was not what her grandmother meant when she had referred to using her gift. This was horrible. 

But she didn’t know how to make it stop, because she was stuck in a dejected, annoyed, inconsolable mood, and had been so since the head injury. For a brief moment, she thought she might recover fully — when Tom had kissed her in the Slytherin common room. But then she found out that the bright, warm energy people usually experienced from touching her had turned painful and dangerous. 

She’d hurt Adolphus. She’d hurt Tom. She’d permanently ruined the entrance hall doors and nearly killed someone. She hoped it would stop there. It was already enough. 

She pushed the scrambled eggs around on her plate. She’d been craving eggs since the injury, but now she was sick of them. She ate them out of habit, and it was hard to break that habit. 

“Bloody hell,” she muttered, head dropping into her hands as she spotted several eager Hufflepuff third years traipse into the Great Hall for an early breakfast. It was a Hogsmeade weekend, which meant she could no longer stay in the Great Hall. Taking one last swig of pumpkin juice, she abandoned her plate of food and trudged out of the hall. When she did this, Zeus finally took off. 

She had plans to go to Hogsmeade for the first time in months. Alone. She didn’t want to be around anyone else. Being around others made her irritated, angry, and then panicked and frightened. 

So she meandered out of the castle, throwing the hood of her cloak over her head and picking her way through the freshly fallen snow on the grounds, heading towards the quaint little village just outside the school’s border. 

Natalie arrived before the rest of the Hogwarts’ crowd, to her relief. She made a beeline towards Honeydukes, where she purchased a handful of chocolate frogs. Chocolate was another craving she had. It annoyed her, because it made her feel like she was pregnant. Which couldn’t be further from the truth, despite all the jokes she heard in the hallways about her and Tom shagging whenever they got the chance. This also couldn’t be further from the truth. Right now, she wanted to be as far away from Tom Riddle as possible. 

She munched on a chocolate frog while she plodded through the snow towards the Three Broomsticks. For a moment, she was struck by the enchanting beauty of the town — with the picturesque snowfall, the tasteful houses and shops, the fresh mountain air, and the lovely silence that always seemed conjoint with snow. 

Until a troop of third years arrived, laughing and shrieking over how much butterbeer they planned to drink, how many sweets they intended to buy. 

With a groan, she hurried the last block to the Three Broomsticks, ducking into the warm atmosphere of the pub. It had yet to fill up, only a few booths had occupants, and the bartender was hurrying back to the bar as if her entrance signalled the arrival of the Hogwarts crowds. 

“A butterbeer, please,” she requested, tossing some gold onto the bar. The bartender gave her a flirty smile and slid a mug of steaming butterbeer across the polished counter. Then he pushed the gold back towards her. 

“It’s on the house, love.”

“Alright,” this annoyed her. She scooped the gold back up, though tossed a single Galleon in the tip mug that floated and spun just above the bar. The bartender had a disgruntled look on his face, but she didn’t care. Grabbing her butterbeer, she turned to search for an empty table. 

Her gaze fell upon a sandy-haired Slytherin sitting at the back of the pub, in the booth she usually occupied when here with her teammates. 

Eric Dawson. 

It was odd to see him without Adolphus. She studied his face for a moment, coming to the conclusion he was as miserable as she. Feeling a sudden need to commiserate with her friend and teammate, she wove her way through the pub to join him. 

“Hey,” she murmured, slipping into the seat opposite him. He flinched at her arrival, sitting up straight and staring at her with fearful green eyes before recognition flashed across his face. For some reason, he seemed more afraid upon realizing who had sat across from him. Natalie frowned at this. “You alright?”

He blinked, taking a minute to process the question. “Er, yeah. I’m fine, I guess.”

“You guess?” she raised an eyebrow at him over the rim of her mug. “What’s that mean?”

“It means I guess,” he replied with a hint of his usual buoyant rascality. “As in, I don’t really know.”

“That seems to be everyone, recently,” her tone brought the mood back down again. “Sorry I asked, I suppose.”

He shrugged, spinning an empty goblet before him and finding the circles it revolved in fascinating. 

Silence occupied the space between them. It crackled with an unsettling gloom.

“Hey. . . can I ask you a question,” Dawson finally spoke up, still toying with the empty goblet. She noticed it wasn’t the usual tankards used for butterbeer, and briefly wondered what he had been drinking. “About, like, relationship. . . stuff and fancying girls. . . and stuff.”

“Uh, sure,” Natalie said, not quite sure how qualified she was to answer such a question, given most of her social circle consisted of boys, and she had never been the overtly feminine type.

“Okay, so, um, say you’re a guy, right, for example’s sake — what would you do if the girl you fancy fancies someone else?” he stopped spinning the goblet, intent on her response. “But you’re not really sure if you  _ really _ do fancy her, like it might not be actual feelings? You know?”

“Um,” Natalie didn’t even know where to begin. She was definitely not qualified to even attempt to answer. “I dunno, really. It’s bad luck she fancies someone else, I reckon. Whether the guy she fancies fancies her back is the dealbreaker, I’d say. And maybe, you know, actually figuring out if you do fancy her would help sort things out a bit — I think.”

“Yeah, true,” Dawson mused, “just not sure how I find out if I actually fancy her.”

“I can’t help you there,” Natalie tried to joke but it came out forced. Her attempted grin turned into a grimace when the door to the pub banged open and in burst a cluster of third years. 

“Wanna leave?” Dawson suggested, seeing the look on her face. 

“Yeah,” Natalie drained the last of her butterbeer and left the mug with a clank on the table. She stood, trying not to listen to the relentless chatter of the younger students. It was useless, however, as the noise threatened to nearly split her skull open. 

“Bloody hell,” Dawson muttered when they stepped out of the Three Broomsticks. Hogsmeade had come alive with Hogwarts students streaking about. A gaggle of Gryffindor fourth years pushed by the two Slytherins to get into the pub. Followed by a few stone-faced sixth year Ravenclaws. They’d barely taken a few steps down the road when a trio of Hufflepuffs nearly bowled them over on their way to Honeydukes.

Natalie had an overwhelming urge to Stupefy anyone who came within a few paces of her. Her hand twitched to where her wand lay within her pocket, but Dawson began heading back towards the castle, so she elected to follow him. 

She soon overtook him, stomping her way up to the castle as if the harder her footsteps were, the less angry she would be. All it did was give her a dull headache. Which she realized once they arrived back at the entrance doors (which she avoided looking at) and slipped into the heated interior of the castle. She could feel her heartbeat within her head, drumming like the annoying tapping of someone’s fingers upon a desk. 

“Bloody hell,” she said it this time, scrunching her face up as her head pounded. “What a bloody waste. I should’ve just stayed here.”

“Yeah,” Dawson said, sounding less than interested in what she had to say. She gave him a look through squinted eyes; he seemed distracted about something. 

“What is it?”

“Okay, can I, uh — do an experiment? With your permission, of course. . . .”

“Sure,” Natalie shrugged, she was just grateful he had spoken in a voice soft enough to not aggravate and pain her further. He could do whatever experiment he wanted if he kept his voice low. 

Natalie supposed she should have inquired further as to what “experiment” meant — but he was her teammate and friend. She trusted him. She just did not expect him to swoop towards her and plant a kiss on her lips. 


	52. Year VII: Definitely Not Flirting

Tom Riddle had been having a very irritating, very stressful, very abnormal day. 

It had begun when he woke early. Which he hadn’t planned to do because it was Saturday, and he’d prefer to stay asleep while the others woke and left for the day. He could then wake up to an empty dorm and enjoy the solitude, just as he liked. 

Except he woke to a hissing voice. A very familiar, very particular hissing voice which only he could hear, but one which he hadn’t heard in two years. 

The basilisk. 

This had, of course, nearly sent him into a panic. Because the Chamber of Secrets was closed. He had made sure of that after the death of Myrtle Warren and the possibility of the school closing. He should not have been able to hear the basilisk. And the basilisk should not have been so agitated about something.

So he scrambled out of his dorm while everyone else still slept and sprinted to the entrance of the Chamber of Secrets because two thoughts were paralyzing him. 

The first; someone who was not him had opened the Chamber. Which meant another in the school shared his heritage to Salazar Slytherin — and this made him feel threatened. He didn’t like feeling threatened. 

The second; the basilisk could be moving through the school, at risk of attacking someone. If there was another petrification — or a murder — the consequences could be drastic. Tom would not allow Hogwarts to close during his seventh and final year. 

He ducked into the girls lavatory where the entrance to the Chamber was and inspected it very carefully. There were no signs of anyone having been in there that morning. The sink which hid the Chamber entrance looked nothing but innocent. 

Just to be sure, he opened the entrance and dropped down into the Chamber, partly to ease his worries, partly to determine what was happening with the basilisk. 

It didn’t take long for him to figure out the issue. The piping system of the school had been compromised. 

He stood at the bottom of the pipe from the girls’ bathroom, right before the entrance doors to the Chamber, in water up to his knees because the pipes connecting the Chamber to the school — and what seemed to be the entire plumbing system of the castle, were bursting — spraying streams of water everywhere and rapidly flooding the subterranean cavern. 

Tom hadn’t thought it possible for the pipes in the school to even do this. Apparently, neither had the basilisk. He could hear the snake behind the doors, hissing in perturbation and even throwing itself against the entrance to the Chamber. 

He opened the doors with a word of Parseltongue. The basilisk erupted out as if being freed from a cage — and Tom understood why with a shock. 

The Chamber had flooded. A wall of water exploded out of the doors along with the basilisk. Tom barely had time to conjure a charm to keep himself dry and ensure the water passed around him. 

The basilisk writhed about in the churning waves — it would soon be completely submerged. It wriggled upwards, moving towards the ruined pipe system leading to the rest of the school. Tom couldn’t allow this at the moment, and commanded it to remain with a sharp word. But the beast was in a frenzy — trying to explain to him what had happened with one word, repeated over and over so that it blended together.

_ “Stormstormstormstormstorm-” _

Lightning struck him — he understood immediately. There was a blonde witch to blame for the failed plumbing system of Hogwarts. 

The explanation unravelled itself before him. He knew air pressure was affected; he hadn’t considered water pressure. The incessant rising and falling — of apparently all types of pressure within the castle, and Merlin knows what other type of magical energy being released — as a result of her hurricane of emotions and uncontrolled energy — had put so much strain upon the pipes within the castle, they had literally reached a breaking point. And then done just that. 

Tom Riddle spent the next few hours attempting to drain the Chamber and repair the entire plumbing system within the school from the inside out. Because if it was brought to the attention of the faculty — there could be less than ideal consequences. Mainly, the discovery of the Chamber of Secrets. Which wasn’t supposed to exist. And then there would be the problem of how the pipes had even failed anyway — which shouldn’t occur in a school of magic. 

He spent some time amusing himself over which would baffle the staff more: the existence of the Chamber or the destruction of the pipes.

Tom managed the cleanup as best he could. (Which was superb, even in his humble opinion). Ideally, he’d like to drag the unknowing perpetrator of the disaster down into the Chamber to fix it herself. Since his handiwork could only be a temporary fix, especially if the pressure surges continued. And maybe then she’d understand the need to exercise control over herself and her emotions. He was not keen on having to constantly clean up her messes. 

With these thoughts in his head, he stood in the entrance of a now drained but still very wet Chamber of Secrets, looking at the dripping statue of Salazar Slytherin. He wondered what his legendary ancestor would think — his carefully constructed Chamber being accidentally flooded by a not yet seventeen year old witch with an ungovernable magical temper. 

He realized Slytherin would likely be impressed with the sheer amount of magical power it had undoubtedly taken. Despite it having been completely inadvertent, Tom found himself feeling impressed as well. 

The basilisk coiled itself along the floor of the Chamber, pleased it was no longer on the verge of drowning, yet still worked up to a state of excitability. 

That was it, Tom decided. He was bringing her down here. 

Tom found her with ease. The most difficult part was the basilisk attempting to follow him out of the Chamber. He had to order it to remain behind, soothing it with the fact that he would be right back and would bring the storm with him. 

Once he exited the girls bathroom, all he had to do was focus on the tingling feeling within the air and then pursue it. 

He found her in the entrance hall, yelling at Eric Dawson, who seemed to be experiencing an immense amount of pain. 

“-by experiment you meant that! You could’ve been more specific!”

“I’m following your own advice,” Dawson mumbled, looking frightened when Tom came barreling into the entrance hall. 

Tom could not care less about whatever they were arguing about. It was probably something trivial and silly. Especially in comparison to all the pipes in the school bursting and an enormous, deadly basilisk in such a frenetic state at the moment.

“Excuse me,” he said to Dawson, grabbing Natalie by the arm and dragging her after him to the girls bathroom. He didn’t bother glancing back; everyone knew he had priority on the Captain.

“Where’ve you been? Did you see-“

“Be quiet,” he cut through her babbling, trying to get her to understand the importance of the situation at hand. It didn’t work, and she continued spewing out a stream of words which made no sense to Tom, so he stopped listening. 

She didn’t shut up until he spoke Parseltongue to open the Chamber and hustled her down the pipe and into the bowels of the school. 

“Where the bloody hell are we?” She gaped around at the damp scenery when she rolled to her feet on a pile of mice and rat skeletons.

“Chamber of Secrets,” he explained and then conjured a blindfold around her eyes. He did not want to risk the basilisk going berserk and killing her. 

“What the bloody hell-“ she began protesting the blindfold, reaching up to remove it. 

“Don’t,” Tom warned her, “it’s for your own safety.” He then realized she had never been very competent when it came to her own safety, so he grabbed her hands and clutched them within one of his. 

Except he had to release them when tongues of pain ripped through his flesh upon the contact. He pulled away with a sharp intake of breath, studying his hand and noting the angry red lines appearing on his skin. He was flabbergasted — he had dragged her all the way down here without experiencing any pain. But now. . . .

Natalie must have understood what happened; she stopped trying to remove the blindfold and stood frozen on the spot. She opened her mouth as if to apologize. But Tom silenced her by speaking more Parseltongue at the entrance doors to the Chamber. He could hear the basilisk rushing around inside. 

“Don’t move,” he ordered as the doors creaked open and the snake spewed out, sniffing the air in delight until its eyes landed on a blindfolded Natalie.

_ “Stormstormstormstorm. . . .”  _ the huge snake hissed, gliding forward and coiling itself around the blonde witch. Not quite touching her, but close enough for her to know it was there. 

“Is that the basilisk?” she asked as the snake lowered its head to sniff at her. It reminded Tom of an overexcited puppy. “It’s right in front of me, isn’t it. Thanks for the blindfold.” She said this without sarcasm, though there was a hint of humor in her voice. 

Tom studied the behavior of the basilisk with intrigue. It seemed to be infatuated with her. He speculated the beast could also sense the energy she wielded — which right now was dangerous and painful to anyone who came too close.

Natalie’s shoulders slumped and her posture grew annoyed. She let out a tired sigh. “Was this really necessary? It was just Dawson. It’s not like I asked him to do it or anything. He’s just upset and trying to figure his life out. Besides, it’s not like you’ve asked me to be your actual, official girlfriend. All we did was kiss one time. It’s not a wedding vow. And if you’re so mad about it, why didn’t you freak out at him too?”

Tom stared at her, wondering what the bloody hell she was referring to. “What are you talking about?” he demanded, completely bewildered. “I brought you down here to let you know I spent all morning fixing the plumbing system of the school.”

He couldn’t see her eyes, but he knew she was now as baffled as he. “Um,  _ what _ ? What does that have to do with anything?” She sounded incredulous.

“I had to fix it because  _ you  _ destroyed it.”

“How the bloody hell could I  _ destroy the plumbing system of the school _ , you absolute moron,” she cackled at the absurdity of the statement. “I mean, really? The plumbing system? That’s ridiculous. It’s a magic school — what are the pipes bursting?”

“Yes. They are bursting. Or were. And those are my thoughts exactly,” he ground his teeth; now curious as to the reason she thought he had brought her down here. “Until I figured it out. Your constant — emotional turmoil — keeps dropping and then raising the pressure within the school. Do you know how many times everyone’s ears have popped since that Quidditch match?”

“No,” she admitted, now solemn. Her whole aura turned dejected and morose. The basilisk seething around her grew sluggish, beginning to slide back into the Chamber. “I’m guessing a lot. . . .”

“Exactly. And apparently it’s been affecting the pipes — or the water within them — too. Remember how you almost cracked the glass of the common room? This is weeks of accumulated pressure fluctuations. Where we’re standing was flooded a few hours ago.”

“Oh. . .” she muttered, “wait, so you brought me down here because I’ve been unknowingly destroying the school — not because you’re mad Dawson kissed me?”

Tom thanked Salazar and Helga and Rowena and even Godric for his decision to blindfold her. His jaw dropped as he gaped at this statement, he was relieved that she could not see his facial expression or she would taunt him about it to the end of time. 

Dawson had  _ kissed  _ her. Kissed her. Kissed.  _ Kissed. _ That was surely the last thing he expected her little argument with Eric Dawson to have been about.  _ Eric Dawson had kissed her.  _

“He did  _ what _ ?” his voice had gone cold and merciless. He didn’t care. 

There wasn’t exactly a set code of behavior for the group who called themselves the Knights. They all knew their place, and Tom liked that about them. It made things easy. But this. . . this was a blatant act of insubordination. Had he, Tom Riddle, otherwise known as Lord Voldemort, not explicitly informed Eric Dawson that he fancied Natalie Borealis? Was that not enough to lay claim to her? Was that not enough to prevent Eric Dawson from even  _ thinking  _ about laying a hand on the Captain? 

Natalie looked reluctant to elaborate. Now in a rage, Tom spat at the basilisk to return to the Chamber. Then he sealed the entrance shut so he could step towards her and rip the blindfold off. She flinched when he did so, not expecting the violent motion. But then she, too, grew angry.

“It was an impulse!” she snapped, crossing her arms and looking all the more confident and tempestuous with her gray eyes free. “I ran into him at the Three Broomsticks. He was moping about fancying a girl. Wasn’t sure if he actually did fancy her. I told him he ought to figure that out. I didn’t realize he was talking about me. So yeah, he kissed me. That’s it. It didn’t mean anything. Hope he figured out his feelings. Don’t know why I have to stand here and explain the whole thing to you.”

Tom couldn’t believe she was so nonchalant about the situation. He felt Dawson had violated some sacred piece of himself. And Natalie stood there as if daring him to have a tantrum. 

“He didn’t have any right to do that,” he hissed, taking a step forward so he was now only centimeters away from her. He could feel the raw energy bubbling around her — it was hot and blistering, not the inviting, uplifting power which had so entranced him before. This was primal, uncontrollable fury, the same one that left red welts on his hand — no wonder the pipes had burst. 

“Who’re you to say that?” she snarled, nearly eliminating the space between them. Any closer and she would be touching him — he could already feel how painful that would be. “What — do you own me?”

Tom wanted to say that yes, he did. Yes, she was his and nobody else was allowed to kiss her, or lay a hand on her, or possess her in any way — and the possibility of anyone doing so was tantamount to committing a nefarious act of treachery against him, personally. 

But he knew she was baiting him. Provoking him into a reaction, just as he did to her. So he pretended the question was rhetorical.

“Why did you allow him to do that?” If she was going to instigate this further, he would do the same. He didn’t care if the entire castle fell down upon them. Not even that could soothe his rage. 

“I didn’t  _ allow  _ him, I didn’t know he was going to  _ kiss _ -” she broke off because a piercing, drawn out screech filled the area they stood in, between the doors to the Chamber and the pipes that led down to it. “What is that?” her tone morphed from fury to fear as the noise continued. Evidently, sounds were still amplified to her. If Tom thought it was loud, he couldn’t imagine how it must sound to her. 

The basilisk threw itself against the closed Chamber entrance, its massive size shaking the stone foundations around the doors. And then Tom knew.

“That would be the pipes bursting —  _ again _ ,” he informed her with as much sarcasm and condescension he could muster. “Clearly my plumbing skills aren’t up to par.”

“Well, why is that happening?” the question was hostile. She glanced up at the network of pipes branching out from their location. The basilisk flung itself against the doors again, distracting her. “What’s the matter with the basilisk?”

Tom had begun to tire of explaining it to her. He gritted his teeth together, retrieving his wand and estimating how long it would be before water came rushing down upon them. He was also not pleased with the sidetracking of his fury over the Eric Dawson incident. “It’s  _ you _ . Your magic. Your energy. Out of control, for months now. It’s affecting everyone — and everything. Do you actually have no idea or are you feigning ignorance because you don’t want to deal with its consequences?”

His words must have struck a nerve. He found himself astonished to be alive after the look she gave him. It could have stopped a charging dragon or made a goblin lower his price.

“If you want an answer, it’s both,” she spat at him, turning about to explore the small area they were in. “Now, how do we get out before this place goes to shit?”

“The whole school will ‘go to shit’ if you don’t find some control,” he muttered under his breath. He was surprised at his own petulance, but then again, it had been a very unnatural day. There they were, somewhere in the belly of the school, with the entire plumbing system threatening to burst and drown them and an overexcited basilisk pounding against the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. Oh — and Eric Dawson had kissed Natalie Borealis. 

It was definitely not Tom Riddle’s ideal version of a relaxing Saturday before Christmas break. 

“Shut up or I’ll go kiss Dawson myself this time,” she threatened as they picked their way through the pipe system. This reminded Tom of why  _ he _ was mad.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have bothered blindfolding you,” he retorted, summoning all his venom in the face of her building temper. 

“The basilisk seemed to like me more than you so I don’t know why you did,” she shot back and they continued bickering in this fashion, treating grave matters and the very serious situation they were in like some sort of mischievous little prank they had concocted, but using the harshest, cruelest tone of voice they possessed because both of them would be damned before they admitted that they were violently attracted to the other at the moment. 

When they reappeared in the second floor girls’ bathroom, their squabbling drew the attention of the ghost of Myrtle Warren. The dead girl had taken residency in said bathroom when Headmaster Dippet begged her to stop antagonizing Olive Hornby.

“Oh, it’s you two,” Myrtle gave them a salacious look. “Not snogging in here, are you? It is a  _ girls  _ bathroom,” and she wiggled her translucent eyebrows at Tom Riddle, who was glad the Chamber entrance had closed before she popped out of a toilet. The ghost still had no idea how she had died, and Tom had no intention of her ever finding out.

“Does it look like we’re snogging?” Natalie said with rancor, sending a glare at the dead girl. “I’m trying to tell him how wrong he is.”

Myrtle let out a sly giggle, as if seeing some innuendo in her speech. “Sure thing, Borealis. Let him know  _ exactly  _ how wrong he is.”

“Well, we can’t both be wrong and I’m usually always right,” Tom asserted, shooting an acrimonious glare at Natalie and ignoring the ghost. The current topic they had weaponized into aggressive flirtation was whether the school still had running water. She claimed it did. He insisted it could not. 

He moved to the sink beside the one where the Chamber entrance was, and turned on the faucet. No water came out. He gave Natalie a very pointed look at this, which did nothing but infuriate her further.

She crossed her arms and glared at him. “Try turning it off and back on again.”

He did so. Still no water. He raised his eyebrows at her with as much pretension and accusation as possible. 

“Try again.”

This time, water sputtered and then poured out of the faucet with alarming alacrity before tapering off to its usual steady flow. 

Natalie looked triumphant. “See? Told you so.”

Tom gave her a nasty glare. “Coincidence. Doesn’t mean anything. We’ll have to try another.”

“Coincidences are bullshit and you know it,” Natalie sniped at him, jumping forward to turn on all the other sinks in the bathroom. Each of them choking for a moment before streaming out water as if nothing had ever been wrong. Then she turned to Myrtle, who had been ogling at them the whole time. “Wanna flush all the toilets in here?”

Myrtle looked delighted to be included in something. A gleeful grin flashed across her translucent face and she flew off to throw herself down every toilet in the bathroom. The successful flushing reflected in Natalie’s smug smirk. Her demeanor was driving Tom ballistic. She had just unintentionally destroyed the entire plumbing system, only to point out that the pipes now functioned perfectly normal, as if she had fixed the system as easily — and as ignorantly — as she had broken it. In fact, Tom had the feeling this is exactly what happened in the time it took for them to leave the Chamber to return to the girls bathroom. 

And he never wanted to kiss her so bad. 

“If any of the faculty ask questions, I’ll refer them to you, seeing as you’ve obviously picked up expert plumbing skills during your time here,” he said, allowing his practiced professional attitude to seep into biting sarcasm. She was the most irritating person in the entire world. And she knew it. 

“Oh,  _ please  _ do,” she remarked, tossing her blonde hair over her shoulder in a dramatic gesture and moving to exit the bathroom. Tom followed. “I’ll tell them about your secret little chamber and your pet snake that seems to be in love with me.”

“It’s not ‘in love’ with you,” her phrasing of the situation exasperated Tom. “Don’t let that get to your head.”

“Oh, it already has,” she affected a dreamy sigh, looking up and down the hallway to ensure the coast was clear outside the bathroom. Then she slipped out, Tom behind her, into the empty corridor, and resumed the sparring match. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone whatever embarrassing name you’ve given it.”

“I haven’t given it a name,” he snarked, coming to understand how ridiculous their conversation had been. He wondered if she had driven it to ludicrosity to distract him from how angry he was over the Dawson kissing her situation. It wasn’t working; he was still furious about it. He’d have to have a word with Dawson.

“Oh, by the way, don’t you dare say  _ anything  _ to Eric,” she turned in the middle of the corridor and whirled on him, as if she had read his mind. He knew she hadn’t; it was just a brilliant guess. And an accurate one too. “I’ll deal with him. He’s my teammate. Don’t even  _ look  _ at him. If you do. . . .” she left the threat hanging and then he knew she was nearly as enraged about the situation as he was — nearly.

“Fine,” he relented, not willing to start a fight amongst the Knights or the Quidditch team if she was going to blow up at him about it. “Tell him not to do it again. And that it was wrong of him to do it the first time. And that it was wrong of him to even think about doing it. And that if he continues to think about-”

“I don’t need  _ you  _ to tell  _ me  _ how to deal with it!” she yelled at him. Though Tom knew this was incorrect, and that she had no intention of dealing with it at all.


	53. Year VII: "Just a Kiss"

Eric Dawson knew he had made a mistake. He couldn’t help himself. It was just a kiss, right? After all, he was only experimenting. Using her own advice — to see if he actually did fancy her. 

It turned out to be a horrible experiment because not only did it not answer this question at all, but he now had painful welts and bruises upon his lips and face. He had only kissed her but it looked as though he had been stabbed in the mouth. It had felt that way too — when he quickly landed his lips on hers, he thought she had sent a current of lethal energy into him. Then he realized it had been accidental on her part. 

Maybe he actually did fancy her still. Maybe he just thought she looked cute when she scrunched her face up when she heard a loud noise. They weren’t equivalent — or at least he thought they weren’t.

“This is it. I can’t show my face around the castle.” After the disastrous kiss that ended in Natalie yelling at him and Tom Riddle dragging her off somewhere, Dawson had camped out in a random boys’ lavatory on the second floor of the school. Adolphus Lestrange with him, helping him through his panic as he stared at himself in a mirror, trying to figure out why he did what he did — and if the consequences would, quite literally, be deadly. “I have to drop out. That’s the only answer. I can’t ever see her again. Or Riddle. Or you. Or anybody.”

“Calm down, mate,” Adolphus kept repeating this. “It was a stupid impulse. The Captain will forgive you. Are you sure our dear Lord Voldemort knows about it?”

“He has to. He always knows everything,” Dawson wiped the perspiration away from his forehead. In the mirror, his pupils were enormous — the thinnest circle of green surrounded each of them. “He came out of nowhere and pulled her away like the castle was about to burn down. I haven’t seen either of them since.”

“Okay but did he see you do it?” Adolphus pushed for more information. “Or do you think she told him about it?”

“He didn’t see it, I’m sure,” Eric reported, reaching down to turn the faucet on in the sink he stood before. No water came out. “What the hell?” he muttered and turned it back to the off position. Then he tugged it on again. A thin trickle of water came out, as if there was no water pressure behind it. 

Adolphus had seen this entire interaction and laughed. “Great day at the ol’ Hoggy Hogwarts. We got our lovely White Knight kissing the one witch who he definitely should  _ not  _ be kissing — and no running water. What’s next-”

“Bloody hell!” Dawson groaned, now trying to find a sink that might produce a steady stream of water. None of them did; they all dripped out a weak current as if they were crying. It certainly fit his mood at the moment. “I know I shouldn’t have done it, okay! I don’t know what I was thinking-”

“Well, I’d say you weren’t thinking at all-”

“Yeah, you know what, you’re right. If you’re gonna stand there and bloody make it worse, I’ll just go confront Riddle myself. It’ll go like, hey, Tommy boy, sorry I kissed the Captain. I know you think you own her and everything but I dunno what came over me-” he stopped when he had to spit out a scarlet liquid. His lip had split open and started dripping blood everywhere.

“Woah!” Adolphus exclaimed, showing much more interest now that there was blood involved. “Did you kiss her or did she punch you?”

Dawson made an outraged noise at him, unable to speak as he attempted to stem the flow of blood. Fortunately, Lestrange’s obsession with gore and violence came in handy. He knew as many spells which could heal wounds as he did spells which could cause wounds. He stepped over and fixed Dawson’s busted lip with a quick word.

“I kissed her, but it felt like she punched me, okay? With a bloody lightning bolt,” Dawson knew Adolphus would understand. He had experienced the same thing when he tried to drag the Captain out of the kitchens.

Lestrange reflexively clenched the hand which the Captain accidentally injured. “I know the feeling. I miss the old feeling.”

“Yeah,” Dawson longingly reflected upon the days when coming into contact with the Captain brought euphoria. “Me too.”

“Gryffindor,” Lestrange growled, blue eyes flashing as he recalled the Quidditch match that seemed so long ago. It hadn’t even been two months but it had changed everything.

“Why is the bloody water acting like this?” Dawson complained, fiddling with the handles of each sink. All he wanted was a steady stream to wash his face and calm him down. 

“I can throw you in the Black Lake, if that sounds better,” Adolphus suggested, coming over to play with the faucets himself. “I’m sure the giant squid would love some company.”

“Shut up!” Dawson snapped, though he nearly screamed when the faucet he kept turning on and off suddenly let out a sharp jet of water. It quickly returned to its normal pressure, and Dawson sighed. “Thank Merlin.”

“No, you shut up,” Lestrange jumped to alertness, apparently hearing something Dawson did not. He leaned over and turned the sink off, staring directly at Dawson. “It’s them.”

“Who — oh,” Dawson felt the blood drain from his face. Now he could hear it too: the distinct voice of the Captain, bickering with someone. He knew the someone with her had to be Tom Riddle, otherwise referred to as Lord Voldemort. 

“They don’t seem that mad,” Adolphus observed, since their bickering sounded a lot more like pugnacious flirting — but Dawson was struck by a horrible thought. He lunged forward and seized Adolphus’s robes, dragging him along into the farthest stall in the lavatory. He shoved Adolphus into the stall, leaped in with him, and locked the door.

“Shut up!” Dawson hissed at a protesting Lestrange, “he’s gonna come in here!”

Adolphus fell silent as Dawson’s prediction proved correct. The two huddled together in the locked stall as the door to the lavatory opened. They heard the steady pace of Tom Riddle enter. Natalie must have remained out in the hall. 

Dawson stared at an equally wide-eyed Lestrange, his heart threatening to pound out of his chest and with beads of sweat dripping down into his eyes. He didn’t dare reach up to wipe them away as they listened to Tom, for whatever reason, turn all the faucets on — and turn them all off. Then he left, leaving the two of them in stunned silence.

Adolphus was the first to recover himself. He leaned past Dawson, unlocked the stall they were cramped in, and shoved Eric out.

“What the bloody fuck was that about!” he burst out, hurrying over to the sinks to see if Tom had done something to them. They remained their innocent porcelain and metal. 

“He must have known I’m here,” Dawson muttered, running a hand through his hair. Was some of it falling out? It had to be — he felt he had aged fifty years in under an hour from stress alone. “He’s looking for me. Bloody hell, what do you think he’s going to-”

“Will you shut it,” Lestrange said, giving him an annoyed look. “If he knew you were here he would have just opened the bloody stall. There’s no bloody reason why he would just turn all the sinks on and then shut them off. That’s bloody mental.”

Dawson thought for a moment, then came upon it. “Intimidation.”

“ _ Intimidation _ ,” it sounded absurd from Lestrange’s mouth. “Don’t be stupid. There’s something else going on. There has to be. We gotta find them.”

“No!” the last thing Dawson wanted to do was look Tom Riddle or Natalie Borealis in the eye. He never wanted to see them again. He’d prefer to remain right here, in the second floor boys bathroom, and never have to partake in wizarding society ever again, thank you very much.

Adolphus ignored him. He marched over towards the door leading to the hallway and tugged it open. Then he froze without explanation. Dawson stepped forward to see what it was all about — and thought his soul departed his body.

Tom Riddle and Natalie Borealis stood just outside the door, as though waiting for him or Lestrange to come out. It would have been comical had he not been Eric Dawson in that moment. But he had been right — Tom had known he was here.

“Oh, hey, fancy seeing you two,” Lestrange managed to unfreeze. Dawson had nearly tripped over himself trying to get out of their sight.

“What’s wrong with Dawson’s face?” Natalie demanded — she was in a no-nonsense mood, and nobody could ever be sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. 

Lestrange make a split second decision to play dumb. “Uh, what do you mean?” 

“It looks like someone punched him,” Natalie pointed out. “Tell him to come out. Now.”

“Uh,” Adolphus panicked, “Dawson isn’t here.”

“Seriously?” Natalie did not sound impressed. “I just saw him.”

“Oh, he, uh, must’ve gone out the other door,” Adolphus scratched his head, trying in vain to temporize. There was no other door in the boys bathroom.

“Fuck you,” Natalie announced, and just marched in, pushing past Lestrange and coming to stand right before a cowering Dawson. “Hi, Eric. What happened to your face?”

“This is a  _ boys  _ bathroom,” Lestrange pointed out, but moved so Tom Riddle could also enter. “ _ Girls _ aren’t supposed to be in here.”

“Oh, shut up, would you,” Natalie told him, then turned back to Dawson. “What happened to your face?”

Dawson stared at the floor between them. It seemed like so long ago when they were sitting in the Three Broomsticks, being miserable together. He was a different kind of miserable now. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her, or either of them. “Uh. . . you. . . .”

“Oh. . .” realization echoed through her voice. It was almost enough for Dawson to glance up, but he restrained himself. “ _ Oh _ . . . .”

And then she was gone. 

The three boys were left staring at each other, not quite sure what had happened.

“Um, okay,” Lestrange began, looking nervously between Tom Riddle and Eric Dawson. “So, how’s everyone’s day been?”

Tom Riddle gave him a pointed glare, as if to tell him that he was having a very bad, very horrible, very dreadful day. Lestrange shut up immediately.

Eric Dawson refused to look at Tom Riddle. He found the faucets of the sinks (which had been such a point of contention today) to be the most interesting things he had ever seen.

“Dawson. . . you’re bleeding,” Tom Riddle’s cold voice rang through the lavatory. Dawson’s hand instinctively flew up to his mouth, coming away with a smear of bright red blood on his fingertips.

“Oh, yeah,” he managed to say; he had the distinct feeling Riddle was pleased — or even gleeful — at the sight of his blood. 

“Best be more careful,” Riddle advised him before moving to follow Natalie out into the hall. And Lestrange and Dawson were alone again.

Adolphus sucked in a deep breath. “You got lucky, mate. Wicked lucky.”

“Yeah,” Dawson wiped away the blood from his mouth and winced. It was going to be sore for at least a few days. “Except I’m dead if I ever do anything like that again.”

* * *

All Oberon Talon wanted to do that day was take a bloody shower. But when he woke, the shower in his dorm had refused to turn on. He tugged, pulled, hit, even tried a spell on the handle — all it managed was a pathetic stream of water that couldn’t even give a house elf a proper rinse. 

So he’d stomped off to eat breakfast in a very discontent mood — growing even more irritated when Natalie Borealis wasn’t in the Great Hall. He didn’t have anything to look at and distract himself with, so he had to listen to the ridiculous conversations being held by the members of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. 

Then he had gotten himself dragged to Hogsmeade by Miles Fletcher, Thaddeus Fawley, and Andrew Osborne, because they wanted to see if the bartender at the Three Broomsticks would serve them Firewhiskey. He wouldn’t. For some reason, this was shocking to the Quidditch players. 

He managed to extricate himself from the team when he spotted Natalie Borealis and Eric Dawson leaving Hogsmeade and returning to the castle. He followed them at a distance, far away enough that they would not be able to recognize him if they turned. 

They never did turn, and Oberon had to jog to keep up with them, as they moved at a breakneck pace. 

And then he had followed them into the entrance hall, ducked behind another suit of armor (it was becoming a trend) and witnessed Eric Dawson kiss Natalie Borealis.

He had been mind blown. He had watched with an unhinged jaw as she stepped away from him and began yelling at him — and Eric Dawson flinched backwards and clutched at his mouth as if she had bitten him, rather than he had kissed her. 

He’d seen the whole showdown. Tom Riddle had hurtled around the corner, grabbed Natalie, and dragged her off despite her protests. And then Eric Dawson had stumbled off down the hall. 

Now, Oberon was still in the entrance hall, still behind the suit of armor, still pondering what to do with this information. 

Until Natalie Borealis came hurrying down the hall as if she had just come to a horrifying personal realization.

So Oberon did the only thing he could think of in the situation. He jumped out right in front of her.

“Bloody hell!” Natalie exclaimed, stumbling to a halt. She was so close to him he could see the twisting within her gray eyes and feel the chaotic energy drifting all around her. “What are you doing here? What do you want?”

“You look upset,” he blurted this out because he hadn’t planned on running into her and had now involved himself in another potentially hotheaded scheme. “What’s wrong?”  
“It’s fine,” she said, stepping to the side to go around him. He followed her motion so she couldn’t leave. “None of your business, anyway.”

He said the next thing that came to him. “Where are you off to?”

“Away from you,” she sneered and he found himself fascinated by the way her lips curled when she did this. 

“I can walk you there,” he said as if she had actually named a destination.

She stared at him. He still stood in her way. “What’s wrong with  _ you _ ?”

He nearly shivered at how emphatic her statement had been. Then he recalled how Eric Dawson had kissed her. Did that mean she was not romantically committed to Tom Riddle? Perhaps this was good news for him. . . “So, uh, are you and Dawson a thing?”

“What?” her eyes narrowed. “Why would you think that?”

“No reason in particular,” he shrugged, something told him to keep quiet about what he had witnessed earlier. “Just curious.”

“Well, we aren’t a ‘thing’,” she said with force, trying to move to the other side of him. Oberon allowed it, but then fell into step beside her as she continued on her way down the hall. He could tell this annoyed her, but he refused to leave. “He’s my teammate.”

“So, you don’t date teammates,” he commented, trying to initiate some humor into the situation. There was an inexplicable vibe around her, he couldn’t be sure if it was drawing him in or pushing him away. “What about other houses?”

“Oh my God!” she yelled this, pausing in her furious pace to glare at him. Oberon almost walked right into her, though found himself relieved he did not. There was a scorching heat emanating from her, activating a primal fear in the back of his mind. It was definitely pushing him away. He wanted to turn and run as far as possible. “Stop! I’m not dating you! Ever! Can you piss off and leave me alone!”

Oberon would usually refrain from referring to himself as the “submissive, easily bullied” type, but on this particular occasion, he found he would rather do exactly what she said, rather than standing and arguing. The instinctive understanding that he was in mortal danger may have contributed to this. 

“That would be wise,” another voice drew their attention. Tom Riddle stood behind them, leaning against the corridor wall with a cool nonchalance. A slight smirk on his face, as if he found something exceptionally amusing. Oberon had the feeling Tom knew exactly how Natalie was affecting him at the moment — he was petrified and spineless — and the Head Boy relished in it. It would have infuriated Oberon had he not feared for his life. 

“Right,” Oberon muttered, shaking his head but it did no good. He had to get out of there — right now. First he felt the need to apologize, as though he had done something morally wrong. But he dismissed this and instead, turned tail and practically ran from the two Slytherins.

Natalie watched him leave with pleasure. Oberon Talon was a perpetual thorn in her side, always popping up at the worst possible moment. 

“Bloody hell,” she shook her head as Tom walked over to join her. “He’s going to regret his actions someday.”

“Hopefully soon,” there was, deep down, an element of humor within Tom’s voice. But to Natalie, it sounded serious. Because it was serious. She didn’t mind the consequences of what he was saying — all she knew was that she was furious at the stupid Gryffindor. 

“Yeah,” she mindlessly agreed with him. Which made him smirk. She refused to look at him, and her thoughts turned to the real problem of the day. The fact that she was destroying the school from the inside out. “The pipes.”

“What about them?”

“I think I fixed them — without really realizing it — but I can’t make any promises with everything that’s happened today.”

“Lots of pressure changes,” was all Tom commented as they began walking back down to the dungeons. 

Now that everything had, more or less, been settled and it was just the two of them, Natalie felt the most tranquil she had in days, weeks even. Despite the fact she was responsible for nearly flooding the school and apparently nobody could lay a hand on her without receiving some horrible wound — and she had now hurt another of her close friends. But Tom was walking beside her, so everything was fine — at least in that moment. 

“I’m going to my grandmother’s for Christmas,” she announced, suddenly recalling what her grandmother’s letter that morning contained. Christmas break began in a few days. She looked forward to getting out of the castle, now that she knew what her tempers did to it. “She said ‘all my friends’ were invited to stay over for the break. I told her everyone would, but I dunno if I want to be around the team right now.”

“I’d be delighted to accept Mrs. Malfoy’s hospitality,” Tom answered the indirect question, making her grin. 

“Good. Because she has a bloody enormous library, and I’m enlisting your research services.”

“I’ll agree on one condition,” his voice turned cold and mechanical, making Natalie slow down and give him a questioning look. “Seeing as some others aren’t quite of the same. . . mindset. . . as we are — I’d like to ask you to officially accept the title of my ‘girlfriend’.”

Natalie stared at him for quite a while before laughing so hard she fell to the floor, clutching at the rough stone for support as her ribs began to ache from laughter. She continued like this for several minutes. When she could finally breathe, she glanced up and nearly exploded into more laughter. Tom was looking down at her with annoyance, as though irritated she had found the situation funny. 

When she was physically capable of climbing to her feet, she met his eyes, let out another snort of laughter before nodding. “Accepted.”


	54. Year VII: Family Dinner Ruined

Zeus met them on their way up from the gates of the grounds to the front entrance of the mansion Domitia Malfoy’s deceased husband had built. The black and gray owl swooped towards the duo of Natalie Borealis and Tom Riddle as if he’d sensed their arrival. Which he most likely had.

The owl fluttered down and landed on Natalie’s shoulder. He then proceeded to make a great deal of squawking as if scolding her for something. 

Natalie snorted. “Hiya, stud.”

Tom gave her a disconcerted look. She rolled her eyes. 

“I’m talking to the owl.”

“His name is Stud?”

“No, his name is Zeus. But he probably has as many children as actual Zeus.”

“Fascinating name.”

“Ask my grandmother if you’re that interested in this idiot.”

“I’m not.”

“Where is my granddaughter!” a firm voice carried along the flawlessly manicured front lawn of the mansion before them. 

Domitia Malfoy stood between the two Ionic columns that flanked the expansive front doors, looking down at the approaching pair as if disappointed. “And where are all your friends? Did you not tell me your entire Quidditch team would be staying for the holidays? Do you know how upset Jubbal and Hiram are going to be? The poor elves spent the past week prepping all the guest rooms.”

“Change of plans,” Natalie shrugged in the face of her grandmother’s pretend wrath. Domitia moved to give her granddaughter a hug, but Natalie stepped away, fear flashing over her face. “They, uh, didn’t want to come.”

“You didn’t ask them to,” Domitia saw right through the white lie with a chuckle, not failing to note the way her granddaughter avoided physical contact. Natalie knew she was in for a talk later. Domitia then turned to give Tom a shrewd look. “But I see you’ve brought the boyfriend.”

“What-” Natalie spluttered, thoroughly taken aback. “How’d you know-”

“You can’t hide anything from me,” Domitia eyed her granddaughter with peculiarity as she ushered the two of them inside. “Anything.”

* * *

Dinner that evening was bound to be a fiasco. 

Domitia had invited Abraxas and Melania, as well as her only son, Abraxas’s father, Tiberius, and his wife, Portia, formerly a Travers.

“So, dearest cousin,” Abraxas was going to kick off dinner with a taunt. He and Melania sat directly across from Tom and Natalie at the long mahogany table in the mansion’s luxurious dining room. “I heard you and Tom have finally decided to stop acting like children and are now officially dating.”

Natalie wanted to facepalm. Or throw something at her smirking cousin. She avoided meeting her aunt or uncle’s eyes, who were now giving her disappointed looks. She knew with her grandmother’s acceptance of her into the pureblood family, her Uncle Tiberius and Aunt Portia fully expected her to marry a respectable pureblood boy and change her surname to one on the Sacred Twenty-Eight list the second she had the opportunity. 

“That is correct,” Tom answered the question. Natalie peeked over at him in astonishment. He said it with such coolness, Abraxas now appeared silly for having asked it. He glared at Tom for removing the chance to tease his cousin. Tom simply shrugged; he was more interested in the adult conversations which would be taking place that evening.

“Mother, how is the deal with the Russian ministry coming along?” Tiberius snatched up the reins of the dinner talk after giving his son — a carbon copy of himself — a chatising look for broaching the topic of relationships with his cousin. “Seamus Dawson told me it’s getting quite nasty to arbitrate.”

“The Russians landed themselves in a pile of dragon dung with that revolution a while back,” Domitia shook her head in annoyance. “They know Triple I is their only hope of being able to support their potions market, but they refuse to agree to the terms. They can’t afford the deal and they know it — but would rather embarrass themselves than admit that.”

Triple I was the potions ingredients distributing company founded by Cassius Malfoy, which his wife now ran. It’s full name was Intrepid Ingredients Inc. Domitia owned a majority of its shares, the rest were owned by Tiberius. No one ever complained about the Malfoy family monopoly because of the competency and efficiency with which the entire nation, and at this point, nations, received potions supplies.

For simplification, Domitia had shortened the name to Triple I, and designed its logo; a piercing gray eye with half of a blue eye on its right and another half on its left. The colors blended so the center eye was stark gray, slowly turning more and more blue before culminating into the deep ocean color on each of the half eyes. Natalie thought it looked a bit like the phases of the moon. 

Tiberius sighed with a politician’s understanding. “Yes, it’s unfortunate what the revolution has done to the country. The Migrant Department has a new complaint every day. Just last week Bruce Killington said they had to obliviate nearly an entire muggle town, since a hundred Russian migrants decided to settle nearby. They built a gravesite for those they lost between the war and all the political uproar but bewitched it so any flowers laid would flash different colors. Apparently, a dozen muggles had seizures from this and started reporting it to the muggle authorities. A complete nightmare.”

“I’m sure Leonard is thrilled,” Domitia tittered, giving her son a knowing look. “How is your campaign coming along? I had tea with Fabienne Lestrange the other day and she said your popularity is at an all time high, especially with how exhausted everyone is of Leonard’s presence in the muggle world, rather than where he belongs.” Tiberius Malfoy was currently campaigning for Minister of Magic and enjoyed the status of being the favorite in the upcoming election. He had the family fortune to fund him, plus backing from nearly every office in the current minister, Leonard Spencer-Moon’s, administration.

“Excellent, Mother,” Tiberius straightened in his chair. “I’ve already garnered plenty of support for a new pro-magic, anti-muggle bill I’d like to introduce upon being elected. Anti-muggle sentiment is at an all time high — as it should be — since what happened with Theia a few years ago. The war isn’t helping either. It will be passed without trouble.”

Natalie stiffened at the mention of her mother. She never spoke about Theia with her grandmother. She didn’t want to. Her grandmother respected that. 

“Ah,” Domitia contemplated the contents of her goblet. “I suppose the best revenge for that muggle’s actions would be a unified reaction from the wizarding world.”

“The bill will go through,” Tiberius, like a practiced orator, seemed to be speaking to everyone at the table. “I promise you.”

Natalie allowed the nearest house elf, named Tecumsa, to refill her goblet. She refused to meet anyone’s eyes. Only Tom knew she had murdered her father. She had no intention of revealing she had already taken action in achieving revenge for the family. 

But she found Tiberius’s words assuring. They meant she and her mother hadn’t been truly cast out of the wizarding world when Theia married Theodore Borealis, the famous muggle football player. It was the muggle world which had refused to accept them. Malfoys would always take care of one of their own. 

“I have no doubts,” Domitia replied, “but get elected first.”

“The final vote is cast on New Year’s Day,” Tiberius announced, “I hope I’ll have a gift for you all in the new year,” and he reached over to squeeze his wife’s hand. Portia Malfoy was a frail, aging witch who was rapidly losing her voice, cognitive abilities, and, by the former measures, her life. Natalie could feel her aunt dying — but was baffled as to why nobody seemed concerned with this. 

“Lovely,” Domitia beamed at her son. “Your sister would be proud.”

Tiberius glanced at Natalie. “I’m sure her daughter will be as well.”

“Doesn’t your niece look just like Theia?” Domitia remarked, “a near spitting image. No trace of her father.”

“And thank Salazar for that,” Portia Malfoy managed to speak up. Her voice cracked and wavered. Natalie wondered how long she had to live — and if she would see her son’s wedding, which would take place the upcoming summer. 

Natalie had politely looked at whoever had spoken for the past few comments. She did not like the conversation one bit — she did not want to hear about her mother, who died at the hands of someone she allegedly loved. Or her father — who killed someone he allegedly loved.

She could feel her temper building from her unease, and as her thoughts started to unravel themselves around the conversed topic. She would rather they speak about how much they hated muggles and muggle-borns, rather than specifically her father. 

It made her feel foolish for having loved the man who raised her — and then destroyed her life. Why hadn’t she known, when she was five years old and kicking around the black and white balls he had all around their house, while he laughed and encouraged her — that he would murder her mother? Bloody hell — why hadn’t her mother known? He was a muggle after all. Just because Theia found one who was different didn’t mean he was not a muggle. 

But this was all in the past. Not worth thinking about now, right?

Her grandmother gave her a sharp look. And then Tom started shifting beside her, as if sensing something. Across the table, Abraxas worriedly glanced from Natalie to his parents. They were unaware Natalie was anything other than their strikingly pretty niece who boasted three badges at Hogwarts and was definitely — according to Domitia Malfoy — going places. If glass started breaking and the pressure started fluctuating, there would be a lot of questions asked — and the answers might not exactly be favorable to one attempting to launch his political career into the spotlight. 

A bubble of panic began to swell within Natalie. It was one thing for her to lose her mind at Hogwarts, surrounded by her friends. It was another to blow her top in front of her family. They had standards for behavior here. What if she compromised the pipes — in her family’s ancestral home. What would her grandmother say? What would her dead grandfather have to say?

Under the table, Tom reached a hand over and rested it on the edge of her chair, not quite touching her. Everyone was afraid to touch her, because she was afraid to touch everyone. She didn’t know if the contact would induce excruciating pain, and she did not want to experiment to find out if it did. But his motion was a clear warning. She needed to calm down. 

“Do we know what happened to him?” her uncle continued speaking. “The muggle? It was said he ended up dead, but did we ever have that confirmed?”

“No,” Domitia said in a strong voice, trying to end the topic of this conversation. “We did not. It’s best if he is dead. If not — at least he doesn’t have his hands on Natalie anymore.”

“He’s dead,” Natalie didn’t know what made her speak up. Maybe she just wanted to hear the truth. Maybe she hoped talking would prevent the escalation within her. She could feel it churning and whirling and gathering strength. She wanted to avoid a headache if possible. “He’s definitely dead.”

Silence swept through the room. Everyone turned to stare at her, as if surprised she had added something to the conversation. It didn’t do anything to help. Pain split through her head, conceiving a migraine. Why did they have to have this conversation anyway? Couldn’t they just talk about something inane, something that wouldn’t spark an emotional reaction within her? She didn’t want to have to hear her father’s yells and her mother’s pleading again. She’d buried that. She’d be damned before it dug itself out of its grave and came back to haunt her — especially in the state she was in now. 

She had to restrain the storm. Control it. She swallowed, tongue feeling heavy in her mouth. Breathe. Just bloody breathe — once everyone’s gone it’ll be fine. She took a sip of the pumpkin juice, hoping her hand wasn’t visibly shaking as much as she thought. The liquid trickled down her throat, somehow both sweet and icy.

“It’s getting a bit stale in here,” Portia Malfoy murmured this to her husband. She whispered it so softly, Natalie glanced around to see if anyone else had heard it. It seemed like they hadn’t.

But this phrase annoyed Natalie. Couldn’t her uncle see his wife was dying? Perhaps he did, but refused to acknowledge it — like her mother refused to acknowledge that her husband abused her before the end of both their lives. Perhaps it was a family trait; to ignore obvious facts in the face of emotional attachment to their significant other. 

A chill ran through her at this and she glanced at Tom. His black eyes met her gaze and she found herself relieved they were both logical and rational beings. They wouldn’t ignore obvious facts because they were more fond of the other than they were of reality. And besides — they were only dating.

Tiberius Malfoy sprang to his feet as if his wife’s comment held more than it let on. It gave Natalie hope. Maybe he did know.

“We must be off,” he declared, gesturing for the house elves to bring their coats. “Portia promised her sister she’d meet for tea tonight. Abraxas, are you staying over?”

“Not tonight,” Domitia spoke with authority before Abraxas could respond. “We’ll see you all tomorrow.”

“Right,” Abraxas cast one look at Natalie and obeyed his grandmother’s orders. He helped Melania out of her seat and accepted both their coats from the house-elves. The four of them departed with the customary farewells and then Natalie, Tom, Domitia, and a cluster of house elves who were confused about what was going on remained.

Once they left, Natalie slumped in her chair. In her concentration on holding herself together mentally, every muscle in her body stretched itself taut. She nearly collapsed onto the table as she abandoned the task, muscles retracting as she buried her face in her arms because she didn’t want to know what was going to happen. 

Dull thuds echoed around the room. The house-elves began shrieking and wailing, which did nothing but worsen her headache. Tom’s breathing grew ragged from her right. The whole room swayed around her, noises and sensations churning together into a cacophony of sensory furor.  _ Bloody hell- _

“Natalie!” her grandmother’s imperious voice broke through the chaos. “Look at me.”

Everyone was always saying that to her when she lost it. Cautiously, she glanced up. Her grandmother stood just to her left, glaring down at her with steely eyes. She found herself locked in on her gaze.

“You might not look like your father but you certainly inherited his temper,” Domitia said, “your mother refused to even swat insects that pestered her.”

Natalie gaped. “How do you know that?”

Domitia understood the question despite the lack of specificity. “I did my share of looking into your father when my daughter ran off with a famous muggle. He might have hid his rages from Theia — but his true nature prevailed in the end. The difference is that you’re a Malfoy.”

Natalie blinked, not expecting to hear any of that. “Oh.”

“I also know you killed him.”

Natalie sat bolt upright in her chair, breath escaping her throat. The house-elves’ screams grew louder. They had all thrown themselves to the floor — that must have been what the thuds were, she realized. She was barely aware of Tom moving to stand up. Her grandmother had lines creasing her forehead. They deepened. A rumbling noise wrapped itself around her head for a moment. She had to clutch at the table to steady herself before it died away and she regained perception of her senses.

“What!?” she choked out, “you know?”

“What did I say earlier?” Domitia reminded her. “You can’t hide anything from me. Now are you going to continue torturing the elves and our eardrums? I know your mother did not raise you to bend the knee to every whim that came over you.”

“She didn’t. . . but then I got my head cracked open,” Natalie muttered, slouching in the chair again. Bloody Gryffindor.

“So you find a scapegoat for your misery and failure to exercise self-discipline?” Domitia admonished her. “As if you weren’t experiencing similar things before the injury? Don’t lie to yourself. This began long ago. A catalyst is not an excuse.”

Natalie glanced over at her grandmother. She couldn’t tell if the elderly witch was trying to provoke her further, or calm her down. The house-elves were still bloody screaming, which only infuriated her — and contributed to her headache. 

“Where’s Tom?” she looked around, realizing she and her grandmother were alone, save the shrieking elves. 

“I told him to give us a minute,” was the response, though Natalie certainly did not remember any such exchange occurring. 

“And he listened?” 

“I can be quite persuasive, dear. You ought to know that.”

“Is this the talking-to I knew I was in for when I arrived?” Natalie looked away, feeling like a scolded child about to be sent to bed early. 

“Yes,” Domitia took the seat beside her. 

If the elves screamed to such an extent, she wondered what it felt like to her grandmother, or to Tom, even though he wasn’t in the room anymore. Sudden guilt flooded her —  _ she _ caused all this. Her aunt and uncle, and Abraxas and Melania had left. The elves were being tortured. Her grandmother wouldn’t admit she was in pain, but Natalie knew it anyway. And she wondered how Tom was doing. . . .

The screaming stopped. The house-elves made relieved noises, beginning to pick themselves up off the floor. 

Natalie’s eyes widened. She glanced over at her grandmother, who gave her a smile. 

“Was that hard?”

“I dunno how I did that though. . . .”

“Sometimes what we do is more important than how we do it,’” Domitia gave her a knowing look and then reached out to pat her cheek. Natalie went to duck but Domitia was quick despite her age. 

Natalie was impressed when her grandmother did not gasp in pain. She did, however, instinctively withdraw her hand after making contact — and more guilt flooded Natalie. 

Anxiously, she went to inspect her grandmother’s hand. Domitia deftly tucked it in her robes and out of sight. But Natalie still caught a glimpse of the branching red welts now deforming her wrinkled hand. She didn’t know it was possible to feel this guilty — it threatened to drown her, giving new life to the winds of fury. 

The house-elves clutched their ears and began screaming again. Natalie wanted to join in with them. 

“Why does that happen? It never happened before.”

“I’d bargain on direction, dear. Who are you mad at?”

“I. . . I dunno? Myself? You? Mom? Gryffindor? What does that have to do with anything? It’s still  _ me. _ ”

“Come,” Domitia ordered, rising from the chair and gesturing her to follow. Natalie noticed her grandmother nursed her hand.

She trailed after her, not in control of her faculties. The howling cyclone inside moved her arms and legs without her consent. 

In the hallway outside, Tom Riddle leaned against the wall opposite the main dining room. Spinning his wand between his long fingers and looking awfully ruminatory. His dark eyes bored into her when she appeared. The cyclone convulsed and she froze in her tracks to stare at him. 

“No dawdling with the boyfriend,” her grandmother called from where she’d bustled down the hall. The embedded humor made them both snap their heads away from the other and follow Domitia Malfoy down the hall in embarrassment.

Domitia stopped at the end of the hall, where the marble wall looked smooth and flawless. She tapped her wand in a particular rhythm on a particular spot — and a door appeared.

Natalie’s jaw dropped. “We have a secret room?”

“We have something you’ll like even better,” Domitia chuckled and allowed Natalie to open the door.

“We have a secret  _ library _ !” they heard Natalie exclaim as she burst into the hidden room.

Domitia gave Tom a look, tilting her head for him to enter the library after Natalie. Before he stepped foot over the threshold, she stopped him to mutter what sounded like the greatest piece of advice he had ever been given.

“You can’t soothe a storm. You’ve got to give it something to destroy.”


	55. Year VII: Everyone Wants to be a Malfoy

Natalie didn’t actually destroy the hidden library. That was a metaphor, of course. 

She did, however, spend the next several hours ripping books from shelves and skimming through them and jotting notes down and finding related books — or unrelated — and then cross-referencing them together as if on a quest for some arcane tidbits of knowledge.

Tom Riddle got dragged into this intellectual crusade. Not entirely against his will, as he found himself captivated by the library tucked away behind the wall. It was chock-full of titles he had never heard of, concerning magic he had only dreamed of. The room itself could rival Hogwarts, with its soaring arches, wall to wall bookshelves, and brilliant mahogany wood.

Natalie had flung several volumes at him, as if he knew what she wanted him to pursue. It only took him one guess — she was looking for information, or anything, really, about herself. Why she could control — or was controlled by — such an unconventional magical energy. Any instances of it occurring in the past, any anecdotes, any odd happening that could — somehow, even through several layers — be connected. 

They were there all night. They had no concept of time passing. The ceiling was bewitched to look like the night sky — and so they dashed around the room, handing books to each other, making notes on scrap parchment — under a sparkling array of constellations and the glowing light of a crescent moon. They had to conjure several balls of light to assist, especially when stumbling upon a possible lead.

At one point, Jubbal, Natalie’s favorite house elf, slipped in with a plate of pumpkin pasties and a steaming kettle of tea. Which neither of them noticed until Natalie nearly slammed a book right on top of the pumpkin pasties. (She let out a string of swears and then ate one).

“-1301, somewhere outside Rome, muggles reported a bright light filling the sky-”

“Yeah. Muggles are stupid. It was a bloody comet. Next.”

“87 BC, witch described as being ‘possessing’ and ‘divine’-”

“Who wrote it?”

“Her lover.”

“Next.”

“405 AD. . . hold on, we’re looking at the wrong things.”

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you say it might be hereditary?”

“Yeah, my great-great grandmother was rumored to have something similar. At least according to my grandmother. She doesn’t seem to know any more than that.”

“Family records.”

Natalie stared at Tom from across the round table at the center of the library where they had at least twenty books open to random pages. “I’ve never seen or heard them mentioned before.”

Tom gestured to the magnificent room around them. “They have to be here.”

“Yeah,” Natalie breathed and then shot over to the one bookshelf they hadn’t bothered going through because its books were locked behind glass doors. 

She tugged the handle of one of these doors. It refused to budge, so she drew her wand and muttered, “ _ alohomora. _ ”

Nothing happened.

“Bastard,” she cursed the door, tucked her wand away, and decided to just pull on the door really hard. 

It worked — a little too well. The door swung open and nearly hit her in the face. She swore and dropped down to her knees before it could do so, not looking for a broken nose or another head injury. 

She popped back up once determining it safe to do so and began to peruse the books inside. They all looked identical, bound in black leather with silver trim along their spines.

“Come be useful,” Natalie turned her head to call out to Tom. He had tasked himself with returning the assortment of books they had gathered to their places. While doing so, he took a moment to slip a nondescript diary onto one of the shelves. It blended in perfectly. 

He ambled over to her and she tossed several heavy books to him. They were held together by magic and the fact that nobody had touched them in years. There were no titles on any of them; not on the covers or the spines. 

Tom cracked one open while Natalie continued pulling them off the shelves and glimpsed the Malfoy family tree from the 500s AD — except the surname was its original Latin: Malfoius. They had to be on the right track now. 

Once Natalie decided she had shoved enough books into both their arms, she stumbled over to the large circular table in the center of the room and dumped them on it. 

“Woah!” she exclaimed, flipping open a book to study the Malfoy lineage from the 1600s. “What years do you have?”

“500s, 600s, 700s, 800s,” Tom said, “all AD.”

“We’re old as fuck, huh,” she laughed to herself, experiencing a euphoric high from the uninterrupted pursuit of knowledge.

“I’m sure Draconius Malfoius the First would appreciate your language,” Tom lifted a book so he could point at the biography of one of her ancestors from the 700s.

She let out a trill of laughter at this, flipping through more of the books and delighting in the fact that nearly every name listed had a brief — or lengthy — description, detailing the individual’s major life events; marriages, births, notable accomplishments, major achievements, and more.

“So my great-great grandmother, Octavia Malfoy, and her husband, Septimus Malfoy were. . . sixth cousins,” Natalie remarked, tracing a page bearing a traditional family tree. It magically expanded itself when she searched for the one lead she had. “She didn’t even have to change her last name. Convenient — also incest.”

“Well, that proves it’s a Malfoy trait,” Tom said, poring over the biography of Lucius Malfoy from the 1500s. 

“I guess, but look at all the shared blood there is,” she swept a hand over the dozen or so books they had open on the table, detailing the lives of thousands of years of ancestry. “The names. What a mess. There has to be more incest. There’s marriages between practically every other pureblood family. Rosier, Prewett, Lestrange, Black, Rowle, Weasley, even Ollivander — and some that probably wouldn’t be considered pureblood by today’s standards.”

“Marlowe, Cromwell, Peverell,” Tom listed off a few names he’d stumbled upon. He was in the 900s now. “Gaunt. . . .” he looked up to see Natalie giving him a horrified stare.

“What year? Tell me it’s not recent enough for me to be dating my fifth cousin or something. . . .”

“924 AD. . . .”

“I think we’re okay.”

“Can you speak Parseltongue?”

“No. I had no bloody idea what you were saying in the Chamber of Secrets. It sounded like you were having an aneurysm.”

“Must be a different branch. We’re okay then.”

“Great. Else I’d have to kill you.”

“Not before I killed you.”

“You wouldn’t stand a chance against me in a duel, Riddle.”

“I wouldn’t be so arrogant, Borealis.”

At her last name, Natalie dropped into a brooding silence. She glanced down at the book she held in her hand, and then at the rest sprawled out on the table. She looked back up at a knowing Tom Riddle on the other side of the round table, book in hand as well.

“You don’t like it either,” he read the flickers in her eyes. “The muggle last name.”

Natalie stared at him for a moment, then shrugged. “I dunno. I used to not even think about it. Until. . . well, now, I suppose.” She flipped a page in the book she clutched, running a finger down the smooth list of names. “I mean — look at all this-” she gestured to the grand array of books around them, then began flicking through the one in her hands, noting the impressive biographies of her ancestors. 

“Armand Malfoy — came to Britain with William the Conqueror. Anastasia Malfoy — co-establisher and owner of the Leaky Cauldron. Lucius Malfoy — courted Queen Elizabeth I and inspired John Dee to design the Monas Hieroglyphica.”

“John Dee?”

He was no muggle.”

“Obviously.”

“Anyway — you know what I know about my father’s side? Nothing. He played professional muggle football. Retired when he was thirty. His father was an alcoholic and died when he was five years old. His mother taught school children and died the same year he married my mother.”

“How. . . impressive.”

“Exactly,” Natalie snorted, flipping another page to read about her great-great grandfather, Septimus Malfoy, who was a seventeenth century political mastermind. “Why would I want his last name?”

“Change it.”

“Are you. . . proposing marriage?”

“Definitely not. I’m saying take your mother’s maiden name.”

“Malfoy?”

“No, Lestrange.”

“Sarcasm  _ not  _ appreciated.”

“Natalie Borealis sounds like a muggle football player. Natalie Malfoy sounds like an internationally renowned Quidditch player.”

She stared at him. It annoyed her that he knew how to play to her weaknesses. Quidditch being the big one. “Maybe. . . I dunno. Natalie Borealis also kinda sounds like a famous Quidditch player.”

“Yes, muggle surnames are  _ definitely  _ in style now. Especially once your uncle gets that bill passed.”

“Why are you so sarcastic today?”

“Because you aren’t seeing sense,” Tom insisted, dropping the book he held. “Do you know how many sponsors you would have if your last name was on the Sacred Twenty-Eight list? There hasn’t been a pureblood Quidditch star in years — a real pureblood. You’d have wealthy sponsors falling over themselves to attach themselves to ‘Malfoy, Seeker for the national team’. Newspaper headlines, branding opportunities, fans lining up for your autograph. . . you’d be set right after graduation.”

“Yeah, but I’m not a real pureblood. . . .”

“Nobody has to know that. You even look like a Malfoy.”

“Yeah. . . what are you gonna do?”

Tom blinked, briefly astonished. “What do you mean?”

“Well, if that’s my post-graduation plan, what’s yours?”

“Ah,” he fiddled with the ring on his hand. Only two people knew it was a horcrux and they were both in the same room. “I’m not certain. I’d like to return to Hogwarts.”

“Merrythought’s retiring. . . .”

“Exactly.”

“I can’t see you as a professor.”

Tom didn’t respond. His gaze fell upon an open book near him. He picked it up and read aloud the statement which caught his eye. “Madinia Dee married Brutus Malfoy. John Dee’s daughter and Lucius Malfoy’s son. They then had a daughter — Lucia Malfoy.”

“And?”

“Her patronus was a thunderbird.”

Natalie stared at him for a moment before tossing aside the book in her hands and marching around the table to join him. “It says that?”

Tom tapped the page. Natalie peered at it with excitement, before becoming disappointed. The page on Lucia Malfoy was distressingly sparse. It recorded her birthdate, the fact that she was a prefect at Hogwarts, that her patronus was a thunderbird, and that she died at the age of twenty-four from unknown causes.

“Dammit,” she muttered, but flipped the page. “Nicholas Malfoy II — her brother. My great-great-something grandfather. This was less helpful than I thought.”

“It’s proof it’s hereditary,” Tom pointed out. “Lucia Malfoy. Octavia Malfoy.”

“Octavia,” Natalie repeated the name, moving to shuffle through the stacks of books until she found the page bearing her great-great grandmother. She hadn’t found Octavia’s actual biography before, having been too distracted by the sheer amount of information concerning everybody else. “Also a thunderbird patronus. Why doesn’t anyone else have their patronus listed?”

“It’s a difficult spell,” Tom reminded her, though she already had a new goal.

“Let’s find everyone who had a thunderbird patronus,” she announced, throwing herself into this task with newfound determination, despite the fact it was now morning and they had been in the library all night.

Tom just chuckled and accepted the book she shoved into his arms.

An hour later, Domitia Malfoy cracked the door open and stepped in, accompanied by a troop of house elves carrying a hot breakfast on trays.

“Merlin’s beard,” she laughed in astonishment upon seeing the round table covered in stacks of books, some ten volumes high. “I hope you have a good reason for this mess.”

“Augusta Malfoius, born 44 AD. Aurelia Malfoius, born 712 AD. Lucia Malfoy, born 1615. Octavia Malfoy, born 1702,” Natalie rattled off the names she’d taken note of in the past hour. 

Domitia Malfoy looked at her expectantly, waiting for a better explanation.

Natalie glanced up when her grandmother remained silent. “They all had thunderbirds as a patronus.”

“You broke into the family records?” Domitia sounded surprised, and Natalie grew nervous. 

“What do you mean?” she pointed across the room at the bookshelves that had been locked behind glass doors. “Those?”

Domitia studied the doors that Natalie had opened with mere force. “Those have been locked since your grandfather moved them here when he built this house.”

“Oh,” Natalie’s eyes widened. “Was I, uh, not supposed to. . . .”

“You most definitely were not. But Cassius isn’t here to scold you, and I won’t do it for him. How did you manage to open them?”

Natalie mimicked the aggressive motion she’d used to open the doors. “I just pulled the handle. . . .”

Domitia let out a nostalgic chuckle. “Your grandfather was a prankster at heart. He still reminds me of that, even after death. He said he used the toughest magical wards on those bookshelves, so nobody could ever open them.”

“Oops?” Natalie’s voice was small as she gently placed the book she was currently poring over onto the table. It barely fit, so she had to place it on one of the stacks that was four books high.

Domitia approached the table at the center of the room, her sharp blue eyes scanning the leather-bound volumes with intrigue. “He said they were the Malfoy family lineage, throughout the millennia. Enchanted to magically update themselves each time a Malfoy was born. Did you find yourself?”

“No?” interest seized Natalie and she started pawing through the titles for what would be the most recent edition of the family biographies. 

Tom, who had found this volume much earlier, handed it to her.

Excitement gripping her, she nearly tore its pages out, searching for herself. She came to Abraxas, and then to the last page in a book that looked like it could hold many more generations. 

She scanned the entry under her name — noting the page was headlined with “Natalie Borealis”. It listed her birth date; December 24, 1926 (with a jolt — she realized today was her birthday), then there was a short blurb about Slytherin house prefect, Quidditch captain, and Head Girl. Directly underneath this, however, in the same curling script as her four ancestors, lay two words:  _ thunderbird patronus.  _


	56. Year VII: This is my Boyfriend, Lord Voldemort

The second that Christmas break ended and Hogwarts’ students found themselves back at the castle for the continuation of the school year, a meeting was called between the mashup of Slytherins on the Quidditch team and those who referred to themselves as Knights. The group was to meet in the Room of Requirement on their first night back.

Natalie planned to arrive tardy to this gathering. Partly because she had a meeting with Headmaster Dippet, Professor Dumbledore, and Professor Slughorn late in the evening, partly because she was feeling dramatic. 

She was, however, enjoyably calm as she murmured the password, “New Years” to the gargoyle outside the Headmaster’s office. She skipped up the revolving stairs until she arrived at the office door. It had been left open for her.

“Natalie, m’dear!” Slughorn’s voice boomed out, “you’re looking lovely! Restful Christmas break, I hope? And my congratulations to your uncle, Tiberius! Minister of Magic, indeed! It’s certainly a wonderful time to be Malfoy.”

“Yes, it was definitely restful, and thank you, sir,” she entered the office and gave a smile to each of the three professors present. 

Slughorn, sitting in a plush seat with his feet resting on a pile of cushions he had most certainly conjured for himself, looked delighted. Dippet, from his spot behind his desk, looked relieved. And Dumbledore, who stood near the windows overlooking the grounds, looked intrigued. Then again, Dumbledore always seemed to look intrigued around her. 

There was a fourth wizard in the office, whom she did not know — but he was oddly familiar. A shock of red hair emphasized the freckles on his face despite the gray appearing around its edges. He towered over the sitting Dippet and Slughorn, making him appear even taller.

“My grandmother sends you her regards,” Natalie nodded at Slughorn, curiously eyeing the unknown wizard. She noticed he was doing the same, though it seemed like he already knew everything about her.

Slughorn’s face lit up. “Ah, Domitia! We overlapped at school together, you know! I had no idea I would be purchasing my potions ingredients from her back then. She lets me buy direct, of course. How is she faring these days, with Triple I? I heard the company was in a bit of an impasse with the Russian ministry.”

“Yes, it’s a bit of a mess, between Triple I and Russia and our Ministry and Gringotts,” Natalie quickly summarized what her uncle and grandmother had talked about for most of the holiday break. 

“Ah, most unfortunate, really — but don’t let me defer this meeting with personal stories any longer — Headmaster, if you will,” Slughorn nodded at Dippet, who sat behind his desk looking as though the meeting was no longer a necessity.

Dippet cleared his throat, straightening in his chair and gesturing to the red-haired wizard. “Yes. . . I’d like to introduce you to Mr. Lament here. You know his son, Neil.”

Natalie’s eyebrows shot up. So that was why he looked familiar. She studied his father for a brief moment; Neil had a different freckle pattern, and softer facial features, but the same determined eyes. 

“Yes, right, of course, how do you do?” she politely said, “I’m Natalie. . . .”

Mr. Lament stepped forward and offered her a hand and a smile. She tried not to panic as he shook her hand. He raised an eyebrow upon their hands meeting, which she ignored. But he made no mention of anything funny, to her immense relief. He had a firm handshake, and Natalie began to wonder why exactly he was here. Her question was soon answered. 

“I’ve heard lots about you — from your professors and my son. I’m Jack Lament. I’m currently recruiting for both the Tutshill Tornadoes  _ and _ the English national team for next year’s Quidditch World Cup. Both my former teams. I now manage the Tornadoes and am the official recruiter for the national team.”

Natalie’s eyes widened and she swore her heart stopped beating. “Oh. . . .”

Dippet coughed, drawing their attention to him. “Mr. Lament was in attendance at Slytherin’s last game. In spite of. . . er, how the game turned out, he was still impressed with your performance. Given this, we — all — are curious as to how you are faring — after, er, the injury and all. I know that was several months ago, but you had us rather concerned. . . .”

“And I could give you a rostered spot on the Tornadoes the second you graduate — and a shot at the national team — if you’re able to play,” Jack Lament apparently did not mince words. He grinned at her, and Natalie understood where Neil got his intensity from.

“Yes!” Natalie vigorously nodded, thrilled at the prospect of playing professional Quidditch. Everything was falling into place, just as she and Tom had talked about. “Yes, I’m definitely better. I think I just needed to rest — away from Hogwarts for a bit. Especially with NEWTS coming up and everything. I feel much more myself. And I’d love to play for the Tornadoes — and of course the national team if I can.”

Jack Lament looked thrilled. “Brilliant. That’s all I need. I’ve got to be off — late night meeting with the head of the Department of Magical Sports and Games. Thank you for your time, Headmaster, professors,” he nodded at Dippet, Dumbledore, and Slughorn, then turned back to Natalie. “I’ll be coming to watch the last Slytherin games of the season. In the meantime, enjoy your seventh year and make sure my son stays in line — though I’ve heard you’ve done an excellent job so far.” He shook her hand once more (a bit too eagerly, in her opinion) and left the office. 

Natalie found herself flabbergasted by how quickly it had all transpired, her hand still tingling from his handshake.

Slughorn chuckled at her astonishment. “Not every day you’ve got the national team recruiter asking after you, my dear.”

“That being said — congratulations,” Dippet’s voice switched from pleased to grave in an instant. “However, I’m sure I speak for all the professors when I say I do not wish this to impair your hitherto outstanding academic performance. You will still be required and expected to pass your NEWTS. . . .”

“Oh, of course, sir,” Natalie nodded in understanding. “That reminds me — I’ve caught up on all my assignments, which I have here, actually.” She retrieved her wand and flicked it. Within seconds a large stack of parchment was tapping against the window near Dumbledore. 

The Transfiguration professor, with a twinkle in his eye, opened the window and the pile of parchment — nearly as thick as a Bludger and tied up with a silver cord, soared into the office and landed on Dippet’s desk. 

Slughorn clapped, “bravo!” at the neat display of magic while Dippet stared at the stack of parchment as though pitying the professors who would have to grade them all. Dumbledore let out a soft chuckle as Natalie grinned. 

“All present and complete,” she announced.

Dippet shook his head and pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose as if not sure he ought to be exasperated or impressed. Slughorn, however, was practically giddy.

“This is why you’re Head Girl!” the Potions professor boasted, referring to both Jack Lament and the stack of parchment. “Tenacious, resourceful, ambitious. Slytherin house is proud to have you, my dear. Salazar himself could not be prouder.”

“I expect we’ll see similar performances back on the Quidditch field, then?” Dumbledore asked with a smile, moving from the window and untying the silver cord around the heavy stack of parchment. He began shuffling through the essays and assignments. “I’m no recruiter, but I won’t deny you the praise your flying skills deserve. Next Slytherin match is coming up soon, I believe?”

“February seventeenth,” Natalie grinned, twice as excited now that Jack Lament would be coming to watch. “Against Ravenclaw.”

Dumbledore chuckled again, feeding off the girl’s exuberant energy. He continued sorting through the assignments, picking out the Transfiguration ones. “I’m sure a great many of us are eager to watch — oh, dear — age is making me clumsy, I believe.” Several of the pieces of parchment slipped through his hands and landed on the floor of the office.

Instinctively, Natalie knelt to retrieve them. Dumbledore had done the same — and so when both reached to pick up the parchment, their hands collided. 

Dumbledore drew his hand back immediately. Seeing him do so, Natalie froze, sudden fear coming over her. Jack Lament hadn’t said anything — but would Dumbledore? And was it a painful experience or a pleasant experience for them? If she had to judge from her own state of mind, it should have been pleasant. But she couldn’t be sure.

She cursed herself, she should have bothered figuring that out before coming back to Hogwarts. Tom probably would have volunteered for the experimental task, even though she’d stubbornly avoided coming into contact with him the entire Christmas break. (Partly because she didn’t want to hurt him, partly because it drove him mental and she loved to annoy him).

Dumbledore didn’t seem to be in pain, so to cover herself, Natalie snatched the parchment up and returned it to the pile, refusing to meet Dumbledore’s eyes. 

She could sense his interest intensify — and it dawned on her that Dumbledore dropping the parchment hadn’t been an accident. After all, Dippet, upon hearing the Transfiguration professor’s comment about his age, had launched into a tirade about how young Albus was and how many more years he had left to live, so he had absolutely no right to be complaining about “his age”.

“Right, well, is there anything else?” she looked around at the professors, still avoiding Dumbledore’s piercing gaze.

“One last thing, to satisfy your Potions professor’s curiosity,” Slughorn piped up, despite Dippet signaling that she was dismissed. “How are you and Tom? I heard Domitia extended an invitation for him to stay at the manor over the break.”

“Oh, yes, my boyfriend and I are doing fine, thank you, Professor,” she casually dropped this and relished in their reactions. 

Slughorn squealed, his entire face turning red as though he had drank a lot of mead a little too quickly. Dippet looked like he had just won a very lucrative bet, and Dumbledore simply raised an eyebrow, his blue eyes glittering behind the half-moon glasses he had recently taken to wearing quite often. 

“Ah, at last, at last!” Slughorn drummed his hands against his knees as if attempting to do a merry little jig while sitting. “I knew I was on to something when I made you two Potions partners all those years ago!”

“Yes, Horace, I’m  _ sure  _ you can take  _ all  _ the credit for the romance between the Head Boy and Head Girl,” Dippet jealously announced this. (It was his responsibility to select the Head Boy and Girl). The two looked as if they were about to launch into an argument over who, exactly, was responsible for the official establishment of the relationship.

Deciding she ought to leave them to it, Natalie simply uttered a quick good-bye, gave them all another nod, and departed the Headmaster’s office — just as Slughorn began to insist he had known they had fancied each other since first year — which, Dippet declared, was a ludicrous statement.

Laughing to herself, Natalie bounded through the corridors of the school. It was well after curfew, but the trio of badges on her robes and the fact she was returning from the Headmaster’s office gave her free clearance to any section of the school. 

She ran into Peeves in a hallway on the sixth floor. The notorious poltergeist was sneakily rearranging the portrait frames as their occupants slept — so they would be rather disoriented, and by that measure, infuriated — upon their waking. 

He was currently moving a portrait of a cantankerous knight to the wall usually occupied by a quartet of young girls collecting flowers. 

Peeves noticed her at the same time. Stopping mid-flight upon realizing he was essentially caught red-handed defacing school property by the Head Girl — whom he had avoided for months because of how horrible he felt whenever around her. 

Except it seemed different now. Natalie approached and studied the spot he intended to hang the knight in. As she neared, Peeves was hit with a bubbly, chaotic feeling — and suddenly he was up for much more mischief-making that night. 

“Seriously, Peeves?” she began in such a ruthless voice Peeves feared she might summon the Bloody Baron. “Sir Cadogan would be much more annoying to everyone if you hung him in the entrance hall instead. I’m disappointed in you.”

Peeves nearly dropped the portrait. “Batty Natty Natty Batty — encouraging wrongdoing? Shaming those badges? What’s gotten into you?”

“Shh!” she held a finger to her lips and glared at the Poltergeist. “I don’t want to be around when he wakes up.”

Peeves cackled and swooped down the hall with the portrait to do exactly what she suggested — and then more. 

With a sly grin on her face, Natalie sauntered up the last staircase to the seventh floor and approached the blank stretch of wall where the Room of Requirement kept its secrets. 

The door appeared in the stone wall when she was only a few paces from it. She tugged it open with a bit too much force and nearly tripped herself in the process. She quickly recovered with a giggle before bursting in. 

“This is your Captain speaking!” she sang as she skipped a few steps into the room and noted its current setup. 

A long table filled the expanse of the room. At the head of the table opposite her, sat Tom Riddle, who managed to both smirk and roll his eyes the second her presence blew through the Room. Branching out around him were Adolphus Lestrange, Eric Dawson, Evan Rosier, Neil Lament, Cato Greengrass, Zacharias Nott, and Lloyd Avery. They stared as though she was an entirely new person from before Christmas break. She certainly felt that way.

“I’ve a huge announcement to make,” she flashed a grin, not caring if she had interrupted something. She stepped over to the table so she stood directly opposing Tom Riddle, and placed her hands on the smooth wood. Taking a moment to enjoy the looks on their faces and running a finger over the tabletop as if to test it for something.

“Well?” Rosier coughed after several moments of silence. “What’s the announcement?”

“Oh, right,” she straightened up and flicked a finger in Tom Riddle’s direction. “Official announcement: this is my boyfriend, Lord Voldemort. Also, Dumbledore sneakily touched my hand so he definitely knows something’s up.”

The room exploded as everyone reacted to one, the other, or both of these statements at the same time. Natalie, however, had taken a few steps back and then launched herself forward. Somersaulting onto the table, she morphed into her animagus form in mid-roll so that a clouded leopard landed on its feet atop the table. 

The miniature leopard raced down the table, abruptly stopping right before it reached the end and sitting back on its haunches so that it skidded across the slick table top, rolled off at the end, and landed right in Tom Riddle’s lap.

The seventeen-year old Lord Voldemort, looking as if a large cat hadn’t just flung itself at him, merely raised a hand to quiet the chatter that consumed the room. His other hand immediately moved to stroke the clouded leopard’s ears because he was receiving a rush of fiery energy just from having it lolling across his lap. So he buried his hand in the leopard’s fur to prevent it from going anywhere so he could soak as much of it in as possible. At last. . . .

Once the room settled down, he spoke with sarcastic silk threaded through his voice. “Yes, I would like to personally thank Eric Dawson here, for ensuring our. . . relationship. . . became official. . . your services are appreciated.”

Eric Dawson looked as if he were about to melt through the floor of the Room of Requirement and never be seen upon the face of the earth again. There was a strained silence around the room until Rosier broke it. 

“I’m sorry!” he blurted, then slammed his blond head onto the table and burst into laughter. This triggered a reaction from the rest. 

Neil Lament and Cato Greengrass collapsed into one another as they shook with howls of laughter. Nott had to cover his face with both hands and Avery pushed his pot of silver ink far away to avoid spilling it. Even Adolphus Lestrange couldn’t maintain his composure and buried his face into his elbow as he laughed at Eric’s expense.

“In other news,” Tom froze the room with a bored drawl. He thought he was doing quite well at keeping his current ecstasy hidden from them. The clouded leopard purred, just loud enough for him to hear. But he didn’t have to hide what he was feeling from her — she knew exactly what she was doing. “Dumbledore might become an issue.”

“Hasn’t Dumbledore always been an issue?” Neil Lament spoke once everyone had gotten over their humor at the fact that Dawson had just been obliterated with a sentence.

The clouded leopard still lounged in Tom Riddle’s lap, its tail long enough to trail on the floor below as its eyes drooped shut. 

“Yes, but this is different,” Tom said, “he doesn’t have an explanation for this. And neither do we.”

“So. . . what do we do?” Adolphus Lestrange asked and the rest of them looked at Tom expectantly, awaiting some carefully crafted strategy.

He continued stroking the leopard, listening to the soft purring that slowly died away as she fell asleep. He didn’t want to ever take his hands off her. “Nothing.”

They stared. Lament’s jaw unhinged itself. Avery let a giant blot of silver ink drop onto the parchment before him. It nearly ruined the entire piece.

“Nothing?” Rosier tested out the word. 

Tom smirked. “Nothing.”

Glances were exchanged around the table.

“Can you, er, elaborate a bit?” Lestrange finally asked for everyone else.

“Certainly,” Tom acquiesced like any good lord would. “We are going to give Dumbledore no reason to suspect that anything is going on — with the Captain. With the Quidditch team. With us. With the Gryffindors. With anyone. We are going to live out the rest of our Hogwarts days as any group of seventh years would. They’ll be hard pressed to suspect suspicious activity if there is none occurring.”

“But what if Gryffindor does something?” Neil Lament popped the question. “Are we just gonna let them? What if they go after the Captain again? Or any of us?”

“Every action has a consequence,” Tom answered with smooth grace. “I’m sure they haven’t forgotten, but we can always remind them, if need be.”


End file.
